The Subreality Collection
by Bar Sira
Summary: A series of stories dealing with a strange world between fantasy and reality, where fictives, Writers, and Muses coexist in almost alarming amity.
1. A Writer at the Club Concepto

**General introduction:** These stories were all originally posted on the Subreality Café Mailing List, an eminent webring (go to Yahoo! Groups and type in "Subreality") that used to have a much higher traffic than it does now. In the interest of publicizing the group's unique literary tradition, I have decided to post them in one multi-chapter fic on this estimable site. (They were originally posted on my main account, under the name of "Qoheleth" - which is why the author in several of these stories bears that name rather than that of "Bar Sira" - but, for reasons of my own, I now prefer that they be here.) A happy perusing to all who visit.

**Introduction to "A Writer at the Club Concepto":** Subreality is a universe between fiction and reality, where characters from different stories can interact with each other as well as with real people - most notably, the writers of the Subreality Café Mailing List, who have a great fondness for projecting themselves into Subreality so they can be verbally abused by their own malcontent daydreams. In this capacity, they are generally accompanied by their Muses, or personified sources of inspiration (how far these Muses are to be identified with the classical Nine is a subject of much debate on the SCML), and they spend much of their time frequenting bars - in this case, the Club Concepto, a place of refuge for fictional characters (or "fictives") who have not yet been put on paper.

This story was posted on the SCML on 20 August, 2003, and makes reference to the Animorphs fandom.

* * *

_Shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, "He had no understanding"? –_Prophecies of Isaiah, xxix, 16.

* * *

They say that, if you look very closely, you can tell the exact moment when a person arrives in Subreality.

Nobody, however, was looking very closely this evening, and so Qoheleth and Erineae appeared on the street with the usual absence of fanfare. One moment they weren't there, and the next moment they were. It was all very routine.

"_Now, then, how do we find the place?"_ Erineae whispered.

She didn't whisper out of any desire for secrecy, you understand. There are few persons less secretive than a novice literature Muse. But Erineae was a very private sort of Muse, and she felt uncomfortable speaking in any other tone.

"I assume we just ask somebody," Qoheleth whispered back; again, not because of anything to hide, but because it didn't seem proper to speak to Erineae in any other way. "You'd expect it to be something of a public landmark, wouldn't you?"

Erineae agreed.

"Excuse me, sir," Qoheleth hailed a passing fictive. "Would you happen to know the way to the Club Concepto?"

The fictive turned and stared at Qoheleth in disbelief. There was some irony in this, as the fictive was of such a sort (blue-skinned, green-haired, and bearing a single eye in the middle of his forehead) that most people would have stared at _him_ in disbelief. Qoheleth, however, was in no mood to appreciate irony, and merely tapped his foot impatiently.

"The… the Club Concepto, sir?" said the fictive.

"Yes," said Qoheleth. "The Club Concepto. You must know of it; small, dingy, not a greatly esteemed clientele…"

"Oh, of course I know the Club Concepto, sir," said the fictive. "Used to spend some time there myself, as a matter of fact," he added, shuddering at the thought. "But I can't see, sir, why a Writer such as yourself would want to visit the Club Concepto."

"I don't, especially," said Qoheleth. "It's more a matter of brutal necessity."

"Eh?" said the fictive.

"_He's only going there because he has to,"_ Erineae translated.

"Oh," said the fictive. "Well, of course, sir, if you have to, it's down that way about two blocks." He gestured with a clawed finger toward what passed for the southeast. "Right next to Joe's Can't miss it."

"A thousand thanks, my good man," said Qoheleth. If it hadn't been for the claws, he would have shaken the fictive's hand.

"And if you'll take my advice, sir," the fictive added, "be careful. Your sort isn't well liked in there. Neither is hers, if it comes to that," he added, gesturing to Erineae.

"Thank you kindly, sir," said Qoheleth. "I'll endeavor to remain cognizant of the peril."

"Huh?"

"_He'll try to stay alive,"_ said Erineae.

* * *

The Club Concepto, when it came into view, fully satisfied all of Qoheleth's preconceived images of it - which, when he reflected on it, was hardly surprising. It was small, grubby, and easy to overlook, and had little wooden letters in the window proclaiming, "THE CLUB CONCEPTO: A HOME FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NO OTHER."

"_Not exactly subtle, are they?"_ Erineae whispered. Qoheleth smiled; he had been thinking the same thing.

The interior of the Club was equally well suited to its role – dark, cramped, and vaguely sleazy, with an odor hanging in the air that smelled partly like anticipation, partly like disillusionment, and partly like the cheapest brand of Guinness on the market. Qoheleth couldn't really say he cared for it, but it seemed to strike a chord in Erineae.

"_Mmmm,"_ she whispered. "_Smells like the Collegium."_

"The Imaginarium Collegium smelled like this?" Qoheleth whispered, astounded.

"_Well, not exactly like this,"_ said Erineae, "_but it always had that same tinge in the air."_

"Tinge?"

"_Certainly," _said Erineae. "_The tinge of pure ideas, unfiltered by plot or technique. The people in this room, my dear Solomon, are the simple desires of their Writers, the utter longing of their hearts, the Inspirational equivalent of straight rye. They are pure. They are good. They are true."_

Qoheleth surveyed the clientele of the Club Concepto. "And most of them," he whispered, "are also drunk."

Erineae snorted. "_Oh, you're impossible."_

"Hey, you!"

Qoheleth glanced up. A portly mobster, evidently the Bouncer of this establishment, was striding towards them.

"What's the idea?" he demanded. "You people ain't allowed in here, you oughta know that."

"I beg your pardon, sir?" said Qoheleth.

"Don't play innocent with me, bub," said the Bouncer. "You come in here practic'ly drippin' Reality, and flauntin' that little weasel-Muse of yours, or whatever it is, and you expect me to believe you're not a Writer?"

Erineae, who was rather proud of her ferret manifestation, contented herself with a muffled hiss in the Bouncer's direction.

"Listen," the Bouncer continued, "I've thrown tougher stuff'n you outa here just for makin' the napkins into inappropriate origami models, so if you think you can just waltz in here and start reWritin' the menu, you've got a…"

"Excuse me, sir," Qoheleth interrupted. "I have no intention of tampering with the local cuisine. I'm just here for a meeting."

The Bouncer looked suspicious. "Just here for a meeting, huh?" he said. "Just here for a… Say!" An idea seemed to strike him. "You the one the party at table 8's been waiting for?"

"Most likely," said Qoheleth. "Two humans and an Andalite?"

"Yeah, that's right," said the Bouncer. "Well, well, that makes a difference, sure. If you think you can get the table 8 crowd to clear out, you've got me in your corner. You know I caught that Andalite sneaking around the counter, trying to pinch my cigar butts outa the ashtray?"

"I'm not surprised," said Qoheleth. "He probably thought they were a delicacy."

And with that, he excused himself and headed for table 8.

"_You know, Solomon,"_ Erineae whispered fiercely, "_if you ever wanted to write a gangster novel, I'd be happy to suggest a few whackings…"_

"No," whispered Qoheleth.

"_Oh, come on."_

"Erineae, if I let you work out your personal aggressions in my stories, I'd never get a PG rating again."

"Hey, Mr. Q! Over here!"

A girl of about fifteen, with brown hair and a round, cheerful face, was hailing him from a nearby table. Qoheleth elbowed his way through the crowd, trying to ignore almost alternating looks of resentment and pleading from nearby fictives, and sat down beside her.

"Sorry I'm late," he said. "There was a logic puzzle I wanted to finish. So, what do we…"

"Just a moment, my good Writer," interrupted the elderly human-Controller at his left, a sardonic tone in his voice. "Aren't you going to introduce us?" He gestured to Erineae.

Qoheleth frowned. "Don't be cute, Zennin."

"_No, really, Solomon,"_ whispered Erineae, a twinkle in her voice. "_Surely you're not implying that I know these people?"_

Qoheleth gave her a look.

"_Really, my dear, I have much higher standards than that."_

Qoheleth sighed. "Fine. Erineae, this is Teresa Sickles, noted Yeerk-pool evangelist; _Aristh_ Anifal-Mekelial-Worrann, of the U.S. Morph Force; and Zennin Two-One-Five, successor to Third Visser Esplin Nine-Four-Double-Six and the second Yeerk in history to gain morphing power. Folks, this is Erineae."

"_Charmed, I'm sure,"_ said Erineae. (Lordy, she could be coy when she wanted to.)

The three fictives all nodded in acknowledgement.

"And now," said Zennin, "with that formality concluded, let us cut right to the point. I note, with grave displeasure, that all of the fictives sitting at this table still retain the status of the unWritten."

"Which is why they are sitting at _this_ table," said Teresa.

"True," said Zennin. "Now, my dear Qoheleth, can you proffer a satisfactory explanation for this state of affairs?"

"Certainly," said Qoheleth. (In fact, he was not at all sure he could, but it was never wise to show insecurity to a Yeerk Visser.)

Zennin leaned back in his chair. "Well, then, by all means, enlighten us."

"Gladly," said Qoheleth. "In your own case, Zennin, it's quite simple. The story 'Twisting Point' is envisioned as a saga-length endeavor, comprising several chapter-length stories. You do not figure in the plot until well into the second story, and I've only made it to chapter 8 of the first story. Ergo, you remain unWritten for the time being.

"As for you two," he continued, turning to Teresa and Anifal, "your situation is a little more complicated. The stories in which you appear are very tricky stories to write…"

«That is not really a justification, Lord Qoheleth,» said Anifal. As a Writer, you have a responsibility to avoid developing characters for stories that you know yourself to be incapable of writing.

Qoheleth held up a hand. "Anifal, I never said I was incapable of writing the stories. I just meant it would take some time. These are complex stories, and I need to know exactly where I'm going with them before I can commit them to paper."

«Why?» said Anifal.

Qoheleth shrugged. "Because that's who I am. I can't just dive into a story the way some Writers can, especially not a delicate one like 'Sacred Host' or 'The Parallel'. I have to brood on it a little first."

Teresa sighed. "Just our luck. Out of all the Writers in the world, we had to get one who thinks he's Stanley Kubrick."

"_Take my advice and count your lucky stars,"_ said Erineae. "_If Solomon was a normal human being, none of you would probably be here right now."_

Teresa nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

And Qoheleth, hearing this, leaned back in his chair, with a sense of having triumphed in the face of terrific adversity.

* * *

But Zennin was not yet finished. "Supposing all this to be true," he said, "I still see a difficulty. If, as you say, you have made it to chapter 8 of the first 'Twisting Point' story, you must long since have introduced the character of Sarah."

"Yes…" said Qoheleth.

"Now, if Sarah had been Written, it seems impossible that she should choose to remain at the Club Concepto; we all know how she values luxury. Yet I can swear to having seen her in this Club no later than last Tuesday. Now, my dear Qoheleth, how do you explain this?"

Qoheleth shifted in his seat. He had rather hoped that this subject wouldn't come up.

"Well, that's a very good point, Zennin. Um… I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but, um… the fact is, I'm having a bit of trouble with the posting process. The, ah, HTML tags."

Zennin arched an eyebrow. "The HTML tags?" he repeated.

Qoheleth nodded, flushing slightly. It is never pleasant to confess, to a member of a race capable of Z-space travel, that you are ignorant of the basics of Earthly computer programming.

«Lord Qoheleth,» said Anifal, «I was under the impression that provided a list of approved HTML tags in its Document Manager Section.»

"It certainly does," said Qoheleth, "and that would doubtless be of inestimable value to me if I knew what the heck they meant."

"Don't you?" asked Teresa.

"No doubt I ought to," said Qoheleth. "Unfortunately, however, having grown up in a household absent of any particular computer expertise, and not having taken a decent computer class since I was five, I've never had the opportunity to learn. And I'll tell you this: it's impossible to figure it out on your own. You access your Document Manager page, and then you just stare, fishlike, at a group of utterly unintelligible letters enclosed in thought-speak brackets."

"And so," said Zennin, plainly enjoying himself, "because of _your _ignorance of this basic subject, _we_ are condemned to an interminable existence in the Subreal ghetto; surviving on the swill they laughingly call food in this place…"

"Oh, is that the problem?" said Qoheleth. "I can fix that. Here." He pulled out a wooden ballpoint pen engraved with Philippians 1:6 ("He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion"), pulled a napkin toward him, and scribbled something on it.

Three bowls of Rice Chex materialized in front of the startled fictives, who dug into it with some reluctance, as though they expected the Club Concepto Bouncer to throw them out for handling contraband.

«Why does it bother me when you do that?» Anifal asked rhetorically as he began to morph to human.

"I couldn't tell you, I'm sure," said Qoheleth. "There's nothing remarkable about Writing Chex."

Teresa glanced up from her cereal and gave him a look.

"_I just want it understood,"_ whispered Erineae, "_that I did not give him that joke."_

"No one accused you," said Zennin.

Qoheleth sighed. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless fictive."

Zennin turned to him. "And what, pray tell, are we to be thankful for?" he demanded. "As far as I can make out, you have called us into existence purely to leave us wallowing among the lowest of the low, with no realistic intention of ever allowing us to rise above the status of Subreal corpse-handlers. You will, I trust, forgive us if we fail to fall at your feet in gratitude."

Qoheleth, taken aback, found himself unable to answer, and it was left to Erineae to come to her Writer's defense.

"_Zennin,"_ she whispered, "_you have spent your life among soldiers and commanders, and have learned a great deal about ordinary human nature; but I don't fancy you know much about Writers. Writers, I think – the best of them, anyway – can't help but create characters. There is a passion in them, a passion for life, for the special beauty they find in the world around them, and they need to share it with someone._

"_But the process of finding another person who can see that special beauty is a laborious one, fraught with difficulties; and Writers, more often that not, are impatient beasts. So they take the quicker path, and simply invent for themselves the persons, animals, and things that they require. They are not, Lord knows, omniscient creators – they are too prone to create recklessly, without thought of the consequences – but it is, in most cases, and certainly in this one, a flaw born of love." _

* * *

It was Zennin's turn to be taken aback. He muttered something under his breath in a bewildered sort of way, but before he could give any intelligible response, he was interrupted by a voice from behind his chair.

"Well, folks," it said, "that sounded pretty like the end of the discussion to me. So, you three wanna clear out now?"

Zennin turned to the Bouncer, who was standing behind the chair with a check in his hand. "Cino!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean you've been listening to us all this time?"

"Yeah, sure," said the Bouncer. "Couldn't hear everything the Muse said, but I got enough to count."

"How dare you!" said Teresa. "This is a private conversation!"

The bouncer chuckled. "Listen, kid," he said, "I've had the exact same talk with my Writer half a dozen times – except some of the names were changed, and his Muse talked out loud. Trust me; I didn't hear nothing I ain't heard before."

Qoheleth rose, "Well, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "it looks like we're done here. I don't know about you, but I make it a point never to keep powerful mobsters waiting."

The Bouncer nodded approvingly. "Smart, bub," he said. "Real smart."

Zennin threw down his napkin and strode out of the Club, with Anifal following close behind him. Only Teresa lingered.

"I'm sorry about Zennin," she said. "I guess he was a bit, well…"

"I don't expect Yeerk Vissers to be the most cordial of dinner guests," said Qoheleth.

"Right, of course. And… I understand about the story being delicate, and I certainly don't want to appear in an inferior piece of work, but… could you maybe hurry it up just a little?"

In spite of himself, Qoheleth was touched. The appeal was so simple, so heartfelt, so utterly un-Zennin-like.

"Why, what brings this on?" he enquired.

Teresa sighed. "I don't suppose you'd understand, exactly," she said, "but it's… it's just creepy not being Written. It's… oh, a million little things – when you pass Written fictives on the street, and feel them staring at you – when it starts raining, and the rain doesn't feel as wet on your skin as it should – when you get hit by a passing surge of Inspiration, and you get that wonderful warm, tingly feeling all over your body, and then five seconds later it's gone…"

"I see," said Qoheleth, who did.

"It's just that whole sense of incompleteness," Teresa explained. "Like you're not good enough for Subreality yet, so go away and stop bothering us."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Qoheleth. "You're straight rye."

Teresa blinked. "I'm what?"

"Straight rye."

"Um… if I have to be a drink, I'd rather be a Shirley Temple," said Teresa.

Qoheleth shook his head. "No, that's not what I meant…"

"_Give her credit, though,"_ said Erineae. "_It was a pretty good comeback."_

Qoheleth sighed, but it was a good-natured sigh. "Very well," he said. "I'll do my best."

Teresa smiled and left the table, leaving Qoheleth alone with the Bouncer – who, Qoheleth noticed, was now tapping the check on the table in an impatient manner.

* * *

Qoheleth sighed and pulled out a wallet. "So, how much was the meal?" he asked, thinking of those cigar butts.

The Bouncer coughed. "Well, y'see, pal, it's like this," he said. "Real money don't do us a ton of good down here – it's like the girl said, material stuff don't do too much for us – but if your little Muse there could maybe douse a little Inspiration on this here napkin, so I could take it to my Writer next time we meet… well, we'll just say that covers all expenses, huh?"

Qoheleth nodded. "That seems reasonable to me," he said. "Pay the man, Erineae."

"_You have got to be kidding,"_ Erineae whispered. "_This two-bit hood expects to take my hard-earned Inspiration in exchange for Club Concepto lasagna? Well, I've got news for him…"_

"Erineae," Qoheleth repeated, glancing at the Bouncer's rapidly hardening expression, "pay the nice gangster."

Erineae argued a little longer just for show, but eventually she consented to dab a few drops of Inspiration on the Bouncer's napkin. This done, Qoheleth took his cloak and his Muse and walked out into the Subreal street.

They say that if you look very closely, you can tell the exact moment when a person leaves Subreality. Nobody, however, was looking very closely this evening.

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Subreality and the Club Concepto were created by Subreality's illustrious founder, the late lamented Kielle, while Andalites, Yeerks, and so forth are the creations of the equally illustrious K. A. Applegate. No offense is meant to either.

**Updates:** Since this story was written, both _The Parallel_ and _Sacred Host_ have had at least a single chapter posted, and Anifal and Teresa have therefore joined the ranks of the Written. Zennin Two-One-Five, meanwhile, has been demoted to Visser Seven and given a token, off-screen role in _The Parallel_. Serves him right.


	2. Birth of a Fictive

**Introduction to "Birth of a Fictive":** Here's another story about the Club Concepto, only this time from the perspective of someone about to leave it. (Incidentally, this story was intended as a companion to D^Knight and Ficwarrior's "Death of a Fictive", which my readers should seek out if they're interested in dark, disturbing literature.)

This story was posted on the SCML on 12 October, 2005, and deals (tangentially) with the Chronicles of Oz fandom.

* * *

For some time she had been a Club Concepto regular. The vertiginous life of the unWritten, conceived but not enfleshed, caught halfway between being and non-being: this was her daily grind.

Her Writer had assured her, of course, that this was only temporary. He knew his story, he said, and all that was required was to put it into words. He was not a fast writer, and she did not appear early in the story, so it would take some time, but eventually, inevitably, her day would come.

She wondered if he had expected this to placate her. If so, he was a fool, for he knew perfectly well that she was not a patient fictive. She was a thief, a brigand, a wild child. The mayhem and vigor of the Subreality Café was the life that she was born for; to place her only a few blocks away, and then give her legs that could not possibly carry her there, was worse than torture.

For reality is harsh to the feet of shadows, and she was the shadow of a shadow; even Subreality was too harsh for her. Subreality, which so impressed the newbie Writers with its malleability, was to her a place of such ironclad fixedness that it was a wonder she could move the air molecules aside, so firmly did they insist upon their relative strength of being against her weak and fluctuating existence.

There were, of course, islands of refuge, isolated areas where Subreality was more sub than real. There was the Concepto itself, naturally; there was the wonderful Old Stone Bridge, where everything was soft and gentle and early Romantic; and, if one cared to stretch a definition, there was Shantytown. From the real centers of Subreal vitality, though, an unWritten could consider herself permanently barred, and that was intolerable.

Of course, not all her fellow unWritten saw eye to eye with her about this. Her son Squertilius, for one, considered his life quite satisfactory for the time being. (She suspected, however, that this was largely because he didn't need to eat. One taste of Club Concepto asparagus would convince anyone that unWritten fictives had no reason to live.)

So kairos wore on. Every now and then a Conceptual would leave the Club - this one headed for the Café, that one for Shantytown, it didn't make much difference from her perspective. They were gone, and where they had gone she was forbidden to follow. The current had picked them up, while she remained stuck in the mud.

Then, one morning...

At first, it seemed no different from any other morning. She ate breakfast (a small bowl of oatmeal, of the kind that fully deserved the name _gruel_), tossed the dishes at the scullery maid, and wandered off to the back rooms to try and stave off the terminal ennui that assailed her on a daily basis.

Then, just as her fingers touched the cellar doorknob, she felt a sudden sense of exquisite relief sweep over her, like a heavy steel blanket being suddenly removed. She almost laughed aloud as the giddiness and lightness suffused her body, and a voice seemed to whisper to her soul, _The_ _time has come._

Then a whoosh, and she was swept away. Her body was still in the Club, but it made no difference, for her memory and consciousness were far away, in a sun-drenched sanctuary on the western apex of the Bermuda Triangle.

She was sitting on a marble shelf, in a room with apes on the walls. An elderly man ran in and began whispering to a Diet Pepsi bottle. She could overhear his words, and they kindled a fierce desire in her. She knocked the man unconscious, pried the bottle from its hand, and tore off its face, leaving it lying on a lapis floor. This done, she ran from the building and out into the street, dreaming of giving life to cold stone.

She saw all this, she did all this, and then she returned to herself; she was standing in the Club Concepto, her hand still clutching the knob of the cellar door.

With a decisive _chunk!_ she shut the cellar door, turned, and strode to the front door of the Club. The doorman looked her over, smiled slightly, and nodded, and the door opened and she stepped out into Subreality.

Her Writer was standing on the front steps, his Muse on his shoulder and a broad smile on his face, the scion of an ancient family at his daughter's social debut. She thought that was rather considerate of him; so many Writers would just have stayed in the waiting room.

They stood silently on the steps for a number of seconds. She wanted to speak, to cry out, to fall at his feet gushing thankful tears; but that was not the way he had made her.

"Well," she said, finally. "Took you long enough."

* * *

Disclaimer: Subreality is the conception of the late lamented Kielle, as is the Club Concepto. The fictive in this story (whose name, by the way, is Dawn Teuling) is, as you've probably guessed, a creation of my own. She and Squertilius appear in my abandoned story "The Boundaries of Oz", which you can find on this same account.


	3. The Taming of the Ferret

**Introduction to "The Taming of the Ferret":** Like most online writing communities, Subreality sets its writers challenges from time to time (write a story about someone's birthday, deliberately write your characters out of character, etc.). Unlike most writing communities, however, it has no deadlines for submission, which was how I was able to compose this rather unorthodox approach to Kielle's Red Rose Challenge six years after the challenge was announced.

This story was posted on the SCML on 15 February, 2006, and makes reference to no particular fandom.

* * *

**Disclaimer:** It is by the grace of God and the inspiration of Kielle that I am able to write this story.

* * *

Erineae glanced around at the small, rocky world, at the nearby horizon and the stars beyond it.

"_This is the place?"_ she said.

Qoheleth nodded.

"_This asteroid will be the setting for the story you will write in response to the Red Rose Challenge?"_

"This very one," said Qoheleth. "All the astronomers are agreed."

"_But there is no red rose on this asteroid,"_ Erineae pointed out. (As a matter of fact, there wasn't much of anything on the asteroid apart from two small vents that belched smoke every so often – and, of course, Qoheleth and Erineae.)

"I can't see one," Qoheleth agreed; "but then, the eyes are so often blind, don't you agree?"

_Uh-oh,_ Erineae thought, _he's getting cryptic again. _Aloud, she said, "_Well, then, do you plan to open my eyes anytime soon?"_

Qoheleth did not answer. Instead, he glanced toward the horizon and said, "It will be sunset shortly. I like a good sunset, don't you?"

What this had to do with anything, Erineae couldn't say, but she responded dutifully, "_Yes, Solomon, I adore sunsets. I cannot count the number of times you have been unable to write the next chapter of _The Parallel _because I was off in Bulgaria, watching the sun set. Now, can we please…"_

"Oh, good," said Qoheleth. "It shouldn't be more than a few minutes now; curl up and make yourself comfortable." He pulled out his Philippians pen, Wrote a lawn chair and a small red pillow onto the dusty ground, and sat down in the former; and Erineae, ruing the day she had chosen a vocation that required her to deal with artists, curled up on the pillow and turned her face to the west.

One might suppose that an asteroid sunset would seem rather underwhelming to a native of Earth. After all, much of the grandeur of an Earthly sunset comes from the play of light in the atmosphere, which a planet the size of a house necessarily has in short supply. As it happened, however, the asteroid's tiny lining of air came up just to Erineae's eye level, so that the setting sun appeared to her rather like an orange pearl being dipped into a river of gold; an image to which her irreducibly poetic soul could not help but respond.

When the pearl had been completely immersed, she turned to her Writer and said, "_Thank you, Solomon; that was lovely. Now, about the rose…"_

"Ah, yes," said Qoheleth. "Perhaps if we head in that direction (he pointed to the east), you will find what you seek."

Erineae wondered about that "perhaps". A writer, she felt, ought not to be uncertain about his central plot point. Still, he _was_ a Writer, so there was very little point in arguing with him.

So the two of them headed eastward. Not very far eastward, of course; the world was too small to go very far. They hadn't taken more than five strides (or twenty, in Erineae's case, given the number and size of her legs) when Qoheleth stopped, glanced at his Muse, and enquired, "How about now?"

Erineae glanced around the new landscape, and found that it was, as far as she could tell, indistinguishable from the one they had left. Certainly there was nothing on it that suggested a red rose: no enchanted princes, no Earls of Lancaster, not even an unusual geologic formation.

She glanced up at her Writer. "_Sorry."_

"Not yet, huh?" said Qoheleth. "Oh, well, it's not a total loss." He gestured to the horizon. "That's the nice thing about these small planets: take five steps and the sun's setting again."

And without further ado, he brought out his pen again and summoned the chair and the pillow forward five yards, leaving Erineae with little choice but to sit back down and watch another sunset.

Maybe that was it, she thought. Maybe the sunset was the red rose, and Qoheleth was going to keep hauling her around this miserable asteroid until she got that point. She stared at the celestial symphony, trying to discern some vaguely floral features; but to no avail. The golden orb remained steadfastly golden and orbicular; not red, and certainly not rose-shaped.

Erineae tapped her tail impatiently until the sun disappeared, at which point she turned to Qoheleth and said, "_Solomon, all this is very entertaining, I'm sure, but I have yet to find a red rose connected with any of it."_

"True," said Qoheleth. "I suppose we must not have gone far enough. Strange that it wasn't immediately obvious, but… oh, well. Shall we?"

As they walked a few paces further west, Erineae diligently searched every patch of ground she could see for even the slightest hint of red, but nothing appeared. The entire world was grey rock, except for the occasional puffs of black from the smoking vents.

Qoheleth stopped and turned to Erineae. "Well?"

"_Solomon,"_ said Erineae, who by this point was starting to fear for her Writer's sanity, "_there is no red rose here. There is nothing here. This is a lump of iron and rock floating aimlessly between Mars and Jupiter, not a hanging garden_ _of Babylon."_

Qoheleth frowned, as though he had expected rather better from a Collegium valedictorian. "Well, if you say so," he said.

Then he glanced over his shoulder at the horizon. "Although…"

Erineae shook her head decisively. "_No, Solomon,"_ she said. "_We are not watching another sunset."_

One of the vents belched a particularly noxious column of smoke, and Qoheleth turned his head to examine it. "No, we aren't," he agreed. "You are. I have other duties to perform."

And he pulled out his pen and Wrote for the third time; but this time only the pillow appeared, and on top of it a dishrag and a bottle of yellow cleanser. Qoheleth picked up these items, went over and knelt on the ground, and began vigorously scouring the inside of the vent. He remained at this task for about three minutes, at the end of which time, instead of the irregular burps it had been giving off before, the vent was releasing a steady, visually pleasing column of grey smoke.

He then went over and repeated this process on the other vent, and then on a third outcropping of rock which was the same size and shape as the other two, but hitherto had produced no smoke of any kind; and it was as he scrubbed this third object that Erineae's curiosity got the better of her. She walked up to his side, sniffed the bottle (it had a distinctly lemony smell), and looked at its label.

**IGNA-PURGE,** it read. **FAST-ACTING, ALL-PURPOSE VOLCANO CLEANSER.**

Erineae's eyes widened with realization. "_They aren't vents,"_ she whispered, too quietly even for Qoheleth to hear. "_They're volcanoes."_ And with that hint, all the pieces of the puzzle fell together.

When Qoheleth got up from the volcano, she was waiting for him on the pillow, a look of quiet surety on her face.

"_So, then,"_ she said, "_you have dwelt on a planet scarcely larger than a house; you have watched three sunsets in one day; you have cleaned out the insides of three tiny volcanoes, one of which appears to be extinct."_

"Just so," said Qoheleth. "After all, one never knows."

"_And somewhere in this story,"_ said Erineae, "_there is a red rose."_

"Exactly," said Qoheleth.

A smile crept over Erineae's muzzle. "_That is really very sweet of you, Solomon."_

Qoheleth bowed. "I do my best."

Erineae sighed, and glanced around. "_What place would you advise that we visit now?"_ she asked.

"The Subreality Café," said Qoheleth. "It has a good reputation."

And the two of them went away, thinking of a flower.

* * *

**Author's note:** I realize that, if you haven't read _Le Petit Prince_, this story made no sense whatsoever; but then, if you haven't read _Le Petit Prince_, you have bigger problems than not understanding this story.


	4. The Secret of Dr Crow

**Introduction to "The Secret of Dr. Crow":** The Imaginarium Collegium is where Muses go to learn their craft. Under the stern, no-nonsense guidance of Lyric Poetry Muse Calliope, who holds the title of Headmistress (as well as some other titles that I will not print here), it has established itself as the foremost school for aspiring inspirators in the known cosmos. Most stories about it deal principally with the students, or Calliope (or both), but there is a significant minority dealing with the lesser faculty members, of which this is one.

This story was posted on the SCML on 14 April, 2006, and makes reference to no particular fandom.

* * *

It was a beautiful day in Subreality. The sky was bright blue with a few judiciously placed cumulus clouds, the birds in the trees were as talkative as politicians, and inspiration visibly danced in every beam of sunlight that alighted on the Collegium's walls. In short, it was a perfect day for Friedrich Engelmann to be hacking at shrubs.

"_Nothung!_ _Nothung!_" sang the elderly gardener as he sliced the bushes into rough topiary silhouettes of the Nine. "_Neidliches_ _Schwart! Was musstest du zerspringen?"_

A quiet laugh rose from the ground behind him, and another voice joined his. "Zu Spreu nun schuf ich die scharfe Pracht," it sang, "im Tiegel brat' ich die Späne." It was a young woman's voice, soft, delicate, and subtly vulnerable; in other words, completely un-Wagnerian, although its owner sang the Kapellmeister's words with an air of sublime confidence, as who should say that she and Siegfried were together aspects of Western literature, and that was all the kinship she required.

"_Hoho!_ _hoho!_" said Engelmann, turning to face his new companion. "_Guten_ _tag_, Erineae."

_"Good morning, Engelmann,"_ said the young ferret-Muse with a smile. She curled up underneath the bush, and gazed wistfully across the grounds as leaves and twigs sprayed down on her.

"What are you doing out here?" Engelmann asked after a minute.

Erineae glanced up, surprised. "_Aren't you glad to see me?"_

"Oh, naturally," said Engelmann truthfully. He had had a fondness for this particular student ever since she had first arrived at the Collegium; most of the young Muses, after they learned that he had Mused for Adolf Hitler, tended to shy away from him, but Erineae had merely shrugged and whispered, "_Well, I'm sure there were faults on both sides."_

"Naturally I am glad to see you," he said. "I was merely surprised that you were outside, instead of cooped up in the library or some musty study hall, researching that great thesis on the Gestation of the Romantic Ballad for Professor Bluntarrow."

"_Oh,"_ said Erineae, and her face darkened slightly. "_Well, if you must know, I was in the library earlier for about half an hour, but I finally decided I couldn't concentrate properly on Beatrice's memoirs while I was obsessing over whether Dr. Crow would notice the indentations that my claws left on the pages."_

"Ah," said Engelmann, nodding ruefully. Edgar Allen Crow, official librarian of the Imaginarium Collegium, was a Muse who had very definite ideas about books, none of which involved letting them into the hands of Collegium students.

"_It's not as though I'm mean to books,"_ said Erineae. "_I'm actually fairly gentle with them; but that doesn't seem to be enough for him. It's as though he expects every volume in that library to last a millennium."_

"Essentially, he does," said Engelmann. "Natural, perhaps, when one has…" He broke off, realizing he was on the verge of betraying a confidence.

Though when he came to think of it, he wasn't entirely sure why this particular confidence should be unduly respected. He had an old score with Edgar Allen Crow that hadn't yet been settled; if he could put the old jackdaw in his place, and at the same time make young Erineae's life a little easier – that would be a highly desirable thing.

He would have to be indirect about it, of course, so that he could plausibly deny everything if rumors ever reached Calliope's ears; but he could handle that. One does not Muse for one of the great schemers of the twentieth century without picking up some skill at indirection…

As Engelmann mused, Erineae glanced up, puzzled that her mentor should have cut himself off so abruptly. "_When one has what?"_ she said.

"Nothing, nothing," said Engelmann. "Tell me, Erineae, have you ever examined the Collegium Records?"

He was referring to a huge, illuminated volume that sat on a small table in the Collegium Rotunda. It was said to contain a full description of every important event in the Collegium's history, from the day it was founded to the day Flame had first revealed it to the Writers. Erineae knew it was there, and had even glanced into it on one or two occasions, but she had never examined it in depth. She said as much to Engelmann.

"Well, you should," said Engelmann. "There is much useful knowledge in the Collegium Records – particularly in the section dealing with the late 1970s."

And, having delivered himself of this curious piece of advice, he turned his back to Erineae, walked over to another bush, and began hacking and singing once again. "_Blase, Balg!_ _Blase die Glut! Wild im Walde wuchs ein Baum, den hab' ich im Forst gefallt…_"

* * *

Erineae tiptoed into the Rotunda, glanced around furtively, then scampered up to the table in the center before anyone else had a chance to come in. She didn't really need to do this, since the Collegium Records were freely available to any who desired their scrutiny, but there was something about the surreptitious way Engelmann had sent her on this mission that seemed to merit equal surreptitiousness on her own part.

"_Okay, late 1970s,"_ she muttered to herself. "_When would Engelmann say the 1970s started being late?"_ Unable to come up with a satisfactory answer, she decided to just start in the middle, with 1975, and work her way forward.

This took some doing on her part, since the Collegium Records, as has been said, was a huge volume, and the last person to consult it had been studying the Great Expansion of the third century B.C. Getting it open to the entry on 1975 required the turning of some two thousand pages, each the size of a standard restaurant menu – a daunting task for a black-footed ferret. Furthermore, since 1975 was near the end of the text, the book kept wanting to flip closed once it arrived at that point, and she wound up having to sit on the back cover to keep it open.

At last, however, she managed to arrange everything to her satisfaction. With an exhalation of contentment, she settled down to try and locate an item dramatic enough to attract the eye of Friedrich Engelmann.

The early results were not encouraging. The late 1970s, to judge by the Records, appeared to be the dullest period in the Collegium's lengthy history; so much so, in fact, that Erineae caught herself wondering more than once whether the section had been inserted by Jimmy Carter to lend credence to his theory of Malaise.

MARCH 16, 1975. ELEANOR HAMILTON RECEIVES BOKERTOVA FELLOWSHIP. No big surprise there. The honorary citation named for Leo Tolstoy's Muse was bestowed regularly upon any Muse who demonstrated great skill in maintaining and enlivening large casts of characters. One might not like Robert Altman's films (by and large, Erineae didn't), but one couldn't deny that his Muse possessed that skill.

OCTOBER 4, 1975. PROFESSOR PUTEUS RESIGNS AMID PROTESTS OF COMPLETIONAL SLURS: TO BE REPLACED BY THE LADY RUTH. The only response this entry provoked in Erineae was a mild feeling of regret, since she considered Professor Ruth to be the most obnoxious faculty member on campus; although, after reading the article, she had to admit that she wouldn't have been much happier taking Rudiments of Journalistic Inspiration under someone who referred to unWritten fictives as "ditzy vago broads".

JULY 22, 1976. NEW COURSE INSTITUTED ON THE INSPIRATION OF TRICKSTER TALES, WITH PARTICULAR EMPHASIS ON AFRICAN AND AMERICAN ABORIGINAL VARIANTS. Now there was a gesture in the spirit of the '70s. Probably not what Engelmann was talking about, though.

DECEMBER 17, 1976. BAS-RELIEF OF CALLIOPE DONATED BY SOLOMON ALEXANDER…

MAY 21, 1977. COLLEGIUM JOUSTING TEAM CELEBRATES ITS HEPTACENTENNIAL...

FEBRUARY 29, 1978. RHETORIC BUILDING'S PLUMBING SYSTEM RECEIVES A LONG-OVERDUE RENOVATION…

"_This is stupid,"_ Erineae muttered to herself. "_What kind of dark, secret knowledge am I supposed to find in the Collegium Records? If anything remotely compromising showed up in here, Calliope would just zap it out of existence – the way she did with the War references, or the incident with Eroticus and the mostaccioli."_ Annoyed, she rolled over onto her back, causing several of the pages to slip out from beneath her and flip gently aside.

And there it was, right in front of her nose. JANUARY 5, 1979. EDGAR ALLEN CROW APPOINTED COLLEGIUM LIBRARIAN.

Hastily, Erineae turned herself right side up and scanned the entry for details – only to find that, for all practical purposes, there weren't any. No references to his former Writer, no interviews with his mother or nestmates; in fact, no trace of his background at all. Just a brief announcement that he had applied on Christmas of 1978, had been accepted by Calliope shortly thereafter, and would begin his duties as soon as classes started back up on the 8th.

Erineae stepped thoughtfully off the back cover (causing the book to swing closed with an audible _thwap!_) and reflected on this new knowledge. Her initial feeling was a mild amazement; she had always thought of Dr. Crow as one of the ancient, immutable fixtures of the Collegium, like Calliope or that hideous fresco in the main dining hall, and now she discovered that he didn't even have tenure. It was a vivid illustration of the ambiguities of Subreal time.

It was also Engelmann's hint. There was, in the context, no question about that. There was some piece of information in this entry that was supposed to make dealing with Dr. Crow a little easier – though what sort of information she was supposed to find in an entry that didn't even list his former Writer…

_Maybe that's it,_ she thought. _Maybe he doesn't want us to know who his Writer was. Maybe he's ashamed of his Writer; maybe he quarreled with his Writer; maybe he's a spy who's been funneling compromising information to his Writer for the last twenty-odd years. Something, anyway._

All right, that made sense – but how was she supposed to identify Dr. Crow's Writer?

"_Use the little grey cells, mon ami,"_ she whispered to herself, laughing. Agatha Christie's Muse had delivered a lecture at the Collegium the previous Tuesday, and ever since then the entire student body had been trying to sound Belgian. Erineae's best friend, Jasmine "Twister" North, had even gone so far as to stage her own murder.

Okay, what could she say for certain about Dr. Crow's former Writer? Well, Dr. Crow was a Collegium faculty member, which meant that his Writer had been a person of some prominence: but he wasn't actually a teacher, which meant that that prominence was probably not of a literary kind. (Engelmann was typical in this regard; Musing for someone who had dabbled in the arts before deciding to try and conquer Europe was an excellent way to become a Collegium groundskeeper.)

Furthermore, Dr. Crow was the librarian, so his Writer had probably had a real feel for books and archives, just as Hitler had been fond of roses.

And finally, Dr. Crow (as Erineae had just learned) had applied to the Collegium near the end of 1978, which meant that the severing of ties between himself and his Writer (either by the latter's death, or by mutual agreement) had probably occurred earlier that year, since Edgar Allen Crow did not strike Erineae as the sort of person who let grass grow under his claws.

"_Prominent, but not artistically… liked books and libraries… stopped needing a Muse in 1978,"_ Erineae repeated thoughtfully. "_Who could that be?"_

And then, suddenly, it dawned on her. There was one person who not only fit all three criteria, but also suited Dr. Crow's personality down to the ground. Why anyone should be ashamed of having Mused for him, Erineae wasn't sure, but she intended to find out ere tomorrow's sun had dawned.

She leaped down from the Records table and headed towards the library.

* * *

Edgar Allen Crow was in the back of the library, re-alphabetizing the magazine racks and muttering imprecations against Muses who couldn't see that _Subreal Cosmographic_ came before _The Subreality Review_, when the large mahogany doors swung open and a quiet, scampering footfall fell upon the library floor.

Dr. Crow straightened his spectacles with a claw and glanced at the new arrival. "Ah, Miss Erineae," he said. "Back for more, are we?"

"_If you don't mind,"_ said Erineae.

"Not at all," said Dr. Crow. "Just don't pull the books out from the top, don't turn the pages with your claws out, try not to breathe so heavily that the humidity level goes up… you know the litany."

Erineae sighed. "_You know, Doctor,"_ she said, "_I don't think I would mind so much if you didn't scan the books for flaws after I left."_

"No doubt you wouldn't," said Dr. Crow equably. "I imagine many people wouldn't, including the young hooligan who tore three pages out of _The Collected Discourses of Theigwin the Learned_ last week. Said she wanted to wear them next to her heart, if you please – apparently they don't teach you how to use a copier in Musal Theory classes."

"_I wouldn't do that!"_ Erineae protested.

"Of course you wouldn't," Dr. Crow agreed. "I am well aware of your reverence for the written word; but reverence is not all in all. History is full of people who unwittingly brought about the destruction of that for which they cared most deeply."

"_So that's a no, then?"_ said Erineae.

"It's a no."

"_Even if I say I loved your work on _Humanae Vitae_?"_

Dr. Crow froze, released his grip on the copy of _Café Complet_ he was paging through, and looked slowly up at the novice Muse. "I would pay good nyrua," he said, "to know where you discovered that piece of information."

"_A little bird told me,"_ said Erineae.

"Engelmann, no doubt," muttered Dr. Crow. "I'm not surprised. He never has forgiven me for _Mit_ _Brennender Sorge_."

Erineae started. "Mit Brennender Sorge_?"_ she repeated. "_You go back that far? I thought you just Mused for Paul VI."_

"Good heavens, no," said Dr. Crow. "If Gianbattista had his own personal Muse, I was never introduced to her. No, I served as Muse of Papal and Conciliar Documents under no fewer than seven pontiffs, from 1907 until 1978."

"_Oh," _said Erineae. "_So I should really have said that I loved your work on _Pacem in Terris_."_

"Or _Gaudium_ _et Spes_," said Dr. Crow. "I was rather proud of how that turned out."

There was a brief silence while Erineae processed this startling information. "_Wow,"_ she said. "_I didn't even realize the Vatican_ _had an official Muse."_

"It didn't, for the longest time," said Dr. Crow. "Calliope offered several times during the Renaissance, but the Holy Fathers all recoiled at the whiff of paganism they detected in the concept. When Giuseppe ascended the throne, however – Giuseppe Sarto, you know, Pius X – his foremost concern, as everyone knows, was the suppression of Modernism, and as a result he tended to be much more tolerant of the conceits of classicism. So long as a Muse didn't expect to be worshipped or sacrificed to, there couldn't be any great harm in it, was his theory." Dr. Crow grinned. "And, to be perfectly frank, I think he just wanted someone to talk to while he was drafting encyclicals. So he concocted an avatar form, dropped in on the Collegium, and enquired if the offer was still valid."

"_I take it it was,"_ said Erineae.

"Naturally," said Dr. Crow. "One can fault Calliope with a number of things, but one cannot say that she doesn't have a long memory. She informed His Holiness that she had just the Muse he was looking for, and I had my vocation all laid out for me."

His eyes grew glassy with remembrance. "First it was Giuseppe… then came Giacomo, Ambrogio, Eugenio – ah, Eugenio – Angelo, Gianbattista, and Albino for a single September. Such great souls, and I to be their kindling; such fine intellects, and I to give them voice." He sighed. "I wonder if the Nine themselves were so blessed."

Erineae was puzzled. "_If that was how you felt,"_ she said, "_why did you quit after Alb… after John Paul I?"_

"Hmm?" said Dr. Crow, glancing at Erineae as though puzzled that she was still there.

"_If you felt so blessed to be the Papal Muse,"_ Erineae repeated, "_why did you retire in 1978?"_

"Oh, that. Well, when Archbishop Wojtyła was elected in Conclave II, I recognized soon enough that he was an able and well-qualified young man – but I also recognized that it would be impossible for me to inspire him properly. You see, as the papers of the time were so fond of pointing out, Karol Wojtyła was a Pole."

Erineae frowned. "_You have a problem with Poles?"_

"Not in the least – but I don't speak Polish. I speak nine other languages, but not that one – and no Muse should ever attempt to inspire someone whose native language he doesn't speak." Dr. Crow made a noise halfway between a caw and a snort. "I learned that lesson when I worked on the Council. I spent the first half of 1961 trying to peck thoughts in Latin into minds that flowed in Dutch."

"_Oh,"_ said Erineae. She found this piece of advice rather depressing, as she had been secretly hoping to Muse for some dashing French novelist, but she had to admit it sounded reasonable.

"And, of course," Dr. Crow added, "there was the small point of Wojtyła already having a Muse. Apparently he wrote poetry, you see."

"_Yes, I knew about that,"_ said Erineae.

"Well, it wasn't likely that he'd wanted to exchange the Muse with whom he'd worked so harmoniously for the past forty years with one who didn't even speak his language, simply because that was what his last six predecessors had done. Karol Wojtyła was a man born to prune, and he pruned old Panisferens right off the olive branch."

"_Panisferens?"_ queried Erineae.

"Well, you didn't think 'Edgar Allen Crow' was the sort of name a Pope would give his Muse, did you?"

In fact, until this point, Erineae hadn't even thought about the question, but she had to admit that the librarian had a point. "_Panisferens,"_ she repeated. "_That's… that's 'Bread-Bearer', isn't it?"_

Dr. Crow nodded. "Inevitable, really," he said. "You have a crow Musing for a bunch of theologians, eventually someone's going to think of Elijah."

"_It's a nice name,"_ said Erineae. "_Why'd you abandon it?"_

Dr. Crow shrugged. "New life, new name. 'Panisferens', to me, meant bulls and imprimaturs and wise old men in tiaras, not a school on the edge of the _Ens_ and the collected knowledge of Olympus; so, when it came time to sign the registrar, I used a nickname I had picked up at the Council." His face darkened. "I never did a wiser thing."

"_Why's that?"_ said Erineae uneasily.

"Do you know how Calliope selects her teachers?"

"_Sure. When a vacancy opens up, she summons the Muse of every eminent Writer who died within the last ten years and picks whichever one annoys her least."_

"Exactly," said Dr. Crow. "Now consider the sort of Writers whom the twentieth century has considered eminent, and imagine how their Muses would respond to the knowledge that their library was being guarded by the bird who inspired _Humanae_ _Vitae_."

Erineae did so. "_I suspect they wouldn't be thrilled,"_ she admitted.

"A small minority," said Dr. Crow, "might approve of the selection: Mauriac's Muse, for example, or that of Sigrid Undset. Most of the rest, I suspect, would be relatively inoffensive; they might make a point of colorfully deriding the faith whenever I was in earshot, but no graver consequence would result. A few, however, would have no hesitation in identifying me as the Great Satan, tyrant over women, enemy of science, and suppressor of free minds the world over; and, once they had decided that, they would seek to bring me down by any means possible."

Erineae frowned. "_Such as what?" _she said. "_Posters of Wright R. Blaüch wearing the triregnum?"_

"Possibly," said Dr. Crow. "Or, possibly, arson attempts upon this library."

Erineae blinked, scandalized. She had not imagined the Musal mind capable of such an act.

"_Why… why would they attack the library?"_ she said.

"Because I value it," said Dr. Crow, "and therefore it can have no value."

"_But the reason they'd hate you is because they'd think you were stifling knowledge," _Erineae argued. "_How could they destroy a repository of knowledge in order to attack you?"_

"Have you never read your Chesterton, Miss Erineae?" said Dr. Crow. "Men begin by fighting the Church for the sake of freedom and humanity, and end by throwing away freedom and humanity if only they may fight the Church. I have seen it happen far too many times to wonder at it."

"_Oh,"_ said Erineae in a small voice. "_So that's why your Writer isn't mentioned in the Records."_

"You checked that, did you?" said Dr. Crow, chuckling. "Yes, the first night I heard old Wiseone discuss 'the essentially pornographic nature of the Apostle's Creed', I realized I was behind enemy lines and it was time to start covering my tracks."

"_Uh-huh,"_ said Erineae. "_So nobody at the Collegium knows about you?"_

"Well, Calliope does, of course," said Dr. Crow. "Engelmann, since we crossed paths several times in the '40s; Ganymede, who handled my registration forms; and a few other well-connected persons in the Collegium echelons." He hesitated. "And now you."

"_I won't tell a soul,"_ Erineae promised.

"Yes, you say that now," said Dr. Crow with a frown, "but young Muses have a tendency to babble – particularly after the third shot of Guinness."

"_I don't drink Guinness."_

"What do you mean, you don't drink Guinness?" said Dr. Crow. "Everyone in this universe drinks Guinness. It's a sign of regional identity."

"_I manage to express my regional identity just fine without it," _said Erineae firmly. "_Certainly I'm not going to start now, when the former Supreme Inspirator of the Universal Church has just entrusted me with a precious secret, and I can't risk letting him down."_

Dr. Crow laughed gently. "You're a fine young woman, Miss Erineae," he said. "Reverent, intelligent, a touch on the dramatic side: everything I would look for in a co-conspirator." He paused. "Of course, that doesn't change the fact that you have claws…"

"_So do you,"_ Erineae pointed out.

"Yes," said Dr. Crow, "but I am a trained professional."

"_And I'm a professional-in-training."_

"So was the young woman who dissected Theigwin the Learned."

"_Would you trust her with the secret of your past?"_ Erineae asked.

Dr. Crow thought about that. "Probably not," he admitted.

"_Well, if you trust me with that, why wouldn't you trust me not to dog-ear the _Encyclopedia Fantastica_?"_

Dr. Crow hesitated, and gave Erineae a cool, appraising look, as though to read in her fur her reverence for literature. Then he nodded. "Very well," he said. "Perhaps you have earned that right."

Erineae bowed. "_You are most generous, my liege,"_ she said.

"Be warned, though," said Dr. Crow. "If, in the course of patrolling your fellow students, I come across a rip, puncture, dimple, or mutilation of any kind that, upon forensic analysis, appears to have been caused by the paw of a mustelid mammal, there shall be no sanctuary for you either in this world or the next."

Erineae hesitated. "_The next being…?"_

"Reality."

"_Just wanted to check._ _Okay, it's a deal."_

"Fine," said Dr. Crow. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some business to settle with Friedrich Engelmann."

Erineae frowned. "_You're not going to dabble in private vengeance, I hope."_

"Don't be ridiculous. He has done something highly dangerous, and I shall leave him an inducement to abstain from doing it a second time – nothing more."

He took wing and flew out the south window, and Erineae scampered over to the poetry section, pulled out three large volumes on the Gestation of the Romantic Ballad, and curled up on the floor in the middle of them. There she remained for four or five hours, in a blissful silence broken only by the sound, essaying from the library's west wall, of a large bird pecking at the rosebushes.

* * *

Disclaimers:

The trail to Subreality was first blazed by Kielle.

Engelmann was created by Raven, and is used with permission.

Edgar Allen Crow was created by Tracy Sue, and is used without permission. (Tracy, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, and I wish you'd gotten in touch with me sooner.)

The Imaginarium Collegium was first discovered, as I recall, by Yasmin M.

The various historical figures mentioned herein, living and dead (including Popes Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII, Beatus John XXIII, and John Paul II, whom you may not have recognized since I never used their throne names), are used with only the best of intentions.

Jasmine North Muses for CG, whom I owed a cameo for her story "Pop Psychology".

And, for those of you who don't follow papal encyclicals:

-_Humanae_ _Vitae_ ("Human Life") was written by Paul VI in 1968 as a meditation on just what the title says. Its prohibition of contraception has become so famous that Emory University, in one of their recommended-reading lists, claimed that the title itself translated as "On the Regulation of Births". (Remind me not to take a Latin class there.)

-_Mit_ _Brennender Sorge_ ("With Burning Sorrow"), Pius XI's 1937 anti-Nazi encyclical, is famous among those who care about such things as the only papal document of modern times that was not written in Latin.

-_Pacem_ _in Terris _("Peace on Earth"), written by Beatus John XXIII in 1963 and addressed to "all men of good will", dealt with how politics ought to be conducted in a godly society - implying that politicians are capable of godliness, which just goes to show you about hope being one of the theological virtues.

-_Gaudium_ _et Spes _("Joy and Hope"), a Vatican II document of 1965, is better known as the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. I'll give you three guesses what it's about.


	5. Ex Antiquitate Urbis

**Introduction to "Ex Antiquitate Urbis":** As the first two stories in this collection have perhaps made clear, the principal form of recreation in Subreality consists of sitting around and drinking. There is a bar for everyone in Subreality: the unWritten, as mentioned above, have the Club Concepto, regular fictives have the Subreality Café (see Chapter 6), literary archetypes have Joe's Place, villains have the Villains' Bailiwick (see chapter 11), interchangeable bit players have the Club Generica, and Writers and their Muses have the Writers' Café. This odd little story (written, originally, for the Malachy O'More Challenge on my "Qoheleth" profile) deals with an unexpected visitor to the last-named establishment.

This story was posted on the SCML on 12 February, 2007, and makes reference to the Pinocchio, X-Men, Mythology, and Batman fandoms.

* * *

Stars were winking into the Subreal sky in both recognized and improvised patterns, and Pinocchio was just getting ready to retire for the evening, when a shadow fell across the doorstep of the Writers' Café.

Pinocchio glanced up sourly at the robed figure before him. "Beat it, pal," he said. "We're closed."

A smile creased the man's sallow cheeks. "Oh, come now," he said. "Do you mean to say you would begrudge a poor wayfarer the merest dram of the fruit of the vine?"

Pinocchio nodded. "Basically, yeah."

The man shook his head. "Alas," he said. "The heart of the Hospitium Vatium has grown cold while I have been away."

Pinocchio blinked. "The what?"

"Hospitium Vatium," said the man. "The Inn of Poets, in the barbarian tongue. Surely this ancient hostelry has not forgotten its name as well as its antique cordiality?"

Pinocchio stared at him. "Pal, you've got the wrong address," he said. "This here's the Writers' Café."

"Ah." The man nodded his head. "My apologies. I should have known; so much of this world has changed its name and semblance over the millennia. Ambivalencium is now Subreality City; the Desert of Vanishings, Shantytown; Castellum Mutabile, the House of Strange Dimensions..."

"Who are you?" Pinocchio interrupted, thinking that this was a point that wanted clearing up.

The man smiled. "My name is Publius," he said. "Publius Vergilius Maro."

There was a moment's silence as Pinocchio mentally abbreviated that name from nine syllables down to the relevant two, and then: "Oh. Oh, dear God. Um, yes, right this way, Master Virgil."

Hastily, he unlocked the Café door and invited the soul of Rome inside.

* * *

Hank McCoy stuck his head into Peregrine's office. "Sir?" he said. "If I may have a word..."

"Certainly, Henry," said Peregrine, looking up wearily from his row of figures. "Do you have any idea, young man, just how hard it is to calculate the day's gross earnings when you're not sure when the day began and your clients have paid you in six different currencies, two of which are not listed on any Real stock exchange?"

"I can appreciate the difficulties," Hank agreed.

Peregrine sighed. "I would not like to be quoted on this point, after the uproar of roughly a year ago," he said, "but there are times when I wish that the Writers of this universe were not quite so allergic to order."

"Excellent," said Hank. "Then you will doubtless be overjoyed to hear that we currently have a client who wrote all his most significant work in dactylic hexameter."

Peregrine looked at him sharply. "What?"

Hank smiled. "Virgil is in the building," he said, and shut the door.

For some moments, Peregrine sat erect in his chair, the accounts forgotten. "Virgil?" he murmured. "But then... no, it couldn't be but, all the same, if it were..."

Then, for the merest instant, the face of the Café's manager abandoned its usual unreadability, and his countenance was suffused with an expression of rapturous joy.

* * *

"So the guy says, 'Girls, it's okay,'" said Pinocchio. "'I'm just coming out to feed the alligator.'"

Hank, who had just returned from the back office, could not begin to surmise what the joke was that had been attached to that punch line, but he gathered that it was a fairly masculine sort of humor, as Mary Shiva looked deeply disgusted and Virgil burst into a loud guffaw.

"Marvelous!" he proclaimed, shaking his head. "What a pity that Actaeon didn't think of that!"

"Oh, yeah," said Pinocchio, grinning. "Then he would have been in real trouble."

Hank cleared his throat. "If I may, Master Virgil," he said, "I confess myself somewhat bewildered as to how you happen to be here. Have you not been deceased for the greater part of twenty-one centuries?"

"As denizens of Reality reckon time, that is so," Virgil agreed. "However, in this world – I believe it is currently called Subreality?"

Hank nodded.

"'Beneath Reality'," Virgil mused. "A curious name, though in a way expressive. In my age, we called it simply Terra Neutralis, the neutral territory on which legend met with history.

"In any case," he continued, "regardless of what one calls this country, one cannot long dwell in it without observing that time has little meaning here. Time in Subreality is reckoned not by minutes or hours, but by stories – and since anyone can appear in any story, therefore in Subreality anyone can appear in any time."

"Huh?" said Pinocchio.

Virgil sighed. "Lucretius ought to explain this," he said. "Or no – perhaps not even he could do the concept justice. We Romans are altogether too practical a people to appreciate such conundrums; you want a Greek, or perhaps an Irishman of the twentieth century. (1) Just the same, though, you must have had experiences: a client will enter this Caf, and he will appear two or three years younger than he had the previous day."

"There have been a few such incidents," Hank agreed.

"Well, then," said Virgil, spreading his arms, "where there can be a difference of two years, surely there can be a difference of two thousand."

There was silence for a few minutes while the Caf staff digested this concept. "So what you're saying," said Mary Shiva, "is that you just happened to appear in a story set in the Subreality of two thousand years after your death."

"Not precisely," said Virgil. "As you may know, I played no great part in worldly affairs during my lifetime..."

"That is quite common among Writers, I believe," said Hank. "They often seem to suggest that they have no need for broader lives – that their writings are their lives."

Virgil nodded. "Well, so it was with me," he said. "My poetry was my life – and it was here, in the Kingdom of Poetry, that I lived it. As I composed my Eclogues and Georgics, I herded sheep on the Eighth Hill and sang for the Musae – for, at that time, one could gather all the Musae in one place without filling an amphitheatre. Likewise, when I came to compose the sixth book of my Aeneid, I felt a desire rising in my heart to journey myself to the underworld, that I might view the eras to come. I did so, and for the past three months I have been journeying among the heirs of Ambivalencium: disputing with the sons of the Prophet at Maadaba; drinking potent Celtish waters at Dùn Togairte; catching my breath in wonder at the silver spires of La Reveria; and, now, resting my weary corpse in the Writers' Café of Subreality City."

Mary Shiva sighed. "You've got a great way with words, you know that?" she said. "I should really read some of your poetry sometime."

"You honor me, Quiris Shiva," said Virgil.

"Hang on," said Pinocchio. "If I've got this right, you haven't finished the _Aeneid_ yet. You said you were still working on Book Six, right?"

Virgil nodded.

"So, if we showed you a copy of the _Aeneid_, you wouldn't be able to see the last however-many-there-are books, right? They don't exist for you."

"There are twelve books in the _Aeneid_," said Hank, "and of course he would be able to see them. He exists in this time, and the _Aeneid_ exists in this time, and so the two of them would be able to interact just as any other two objects occupying the same spatio-temporal location would be able to interact."

"Yeah, but he's gotta come up with the _Aeneid_ in order for it to exist," said Pinocchio. "And he's not gonna need to come up with the last few books if we showed him a copy here; he could just remember what it said and then copy it down once he got back to his Ambivalencium place."

"So?"

"So, if he never comes up with them, they won't exist," said Pinocchio. "And if they never exist, he won't be able to see them. So even if he saw them, he wouldn't be able to see them, because it's his seeing them that makes them impossible to see."

As Hank was working that one out, Virgil interrupted. "Do you have a copy of the _Aeneid_ in this Café, Quiris Pinocchio?"

"Nope," said Pinocchio cheerfully.

"Then I, for one, fail to see how this conflict can be adjudicated," said Virgil, "and I suggest we declare you and Freeman McCoy to be mutually victorious and drink a round to both of your healths. What say you, Quiris Shiva?"

"Sounds good to me," said the barmaid, reaching for shot glasses with her top two pairs of arms.

There was a moment of silence as the four of them hoisted their drinks (Foster's for Hank and Mary Shiva; Chianti for Virgil and Pinocchio). Then Hank turned to Virgil. "All right," he said. "I believe I now understand how you arrived in this incarnation of the Z-Universe. What I fail to understand is why you arrived now, in the twilight of Subreality's existence, rather than six or seven years ago, when it was overflowing with vitality."

"When Quiris Dex was active, you mean?" said Virgil with a smile.

Hank blinked. "How do you know about Dex?"

"We have met," said Virgil. "It was at Dùn Togairte, I believe; when Quiris Pinocchio's analogue at the Tabhairn nam Bàrd learned that I was on a quest, he directed me to a special Questers' Table, where I joined a company consisting principally of armored warriors who were eagerly discussing a certain sacred goblet. The only other Writer at the table was a remarkably drunken and unpleasantly scarred youth, whom I engaged in conversation and discovered three facts: first, that his name was Dex; second, that he was from 'the year 2000', by which, as I determined after some effort, he meant the two thousand seven hundred and fifty-third year from the founding of the City; third, that he had recently participated in a Titanic battle, and had gone on a pilgrimage to seek truth. He did not know where he might find it, and he had concluded that his only recourse was to imitate a certain savage tribe of his native era, whose young men (as he explained it – bear in mind, he was quite drunk) go out into the desert and simply wander aimlessly for many days until they find what they are looking for."

"The Walkabout," murmured Mary Shiva.

"Yes," said Virgil. "But in answer to your question, Quiris McCoy, I could not tell you why I arrived in this city in your era rather than his."

"Perhaps I can," said a voice. All four revelers turned toward the door of the office, and the three Caf staff members were astonished to find that their manager had emerged from his place of solitude.

Virgil, however, took nothing amiss. "Ah!" he said. "I bid you welcome to our revels, Quiris...?"

"Peregrine," said the robed figure. "Successor of Marcus Toxicus."

Virgil arched an eyebrow. "Indeed?" he said. "I trust that you do not make a hobby of poisoning the Hospitium's drinks, as your predecessor was wont to do?"

"I would consider it something of a liberty," Peregrine said dryly. "Mary Shiva, if you please?"

"Yes, sir," said Mary Shiva, and whipped up a brandy and soda for her manager with that brisk efficiency to which only a polybrachiate can aspire.

Hank looked at Peregrine quizzically. "You say you have an explanation for Mr. Maro's unexpected arrival, sir?" he said.

"Of a sort," said Peregrine. "You see, about three weeks ago, I received a letter from a wise old man – in fact, from _the_ Wise Old Man."

Pinocchio blinked. "The one at Joe's?" he said.

"Exactly," said Peregrine. "Nor was I the only one. I later discovered that His Primordiality had made four copies of this letter, sending the other three to Calliope, Kielle, and the Manager of the Subreality Café."

"Kielle?" Mary Shiva repeated. "Kielle's dead."

"True," said Peregrine. "The letter was delivered to her former room at the House of Strange Dimensions, where it simply sat for two or three days until one of the cleaning personnel picked it up and dropped it off at the front desk."

Hank looked thoughtful. "The Scribe, the Muse Queen, and the managers of the two Cafés," he said. "That about completes the roll call of Subreal notables. This must have been a fairly important communication."

"So we thought," said Peregrine. "As is often the case with the important communications of sages, however, this letter was expressed with something less than perfect clarity. It consisted simply of seven words: '_Ex antiquitate urbis ferent promissum mundi futurorum._'"

It took Hank a minute to construe that. "'From the city's antiquity, they shall bring the promise of the world's future'?"

"That was what Calliope came up with," said Peregrine. "Master Virgil, do you concur?"

"It sounds an accurate rendering," said Virgil. "A bit unwieldy, but that is a characteristic of the barbarian tongues."

Mary Shiva stuck out her barbarian tongue at him, then dove beneath the bar before he could turn around.

"What that could mean, we did not find obvious," said Peregrine, "and we were loath to speculate. Now, however, the first half seems to have been fulfilled: a Writer who comes to this Café by way of Ambivalencium is clearly 'from the City's antiquity'."

"Yeah," said Pinocchio, "but how does he 'bring the promise of the world's future'? And, for that matter, how is he a 'they'?"

"Have no fears about that latter," said Virgil. "I did not come alone. But tell me, Quiris Peregrine, even granting that this is the true construal of the Old Man's oracle, why should it be so important as to require immediate information of the City's four most notable personages?"

Peregrine sighed. "You may well ask, Master Virgil," he said. "You were not around a year ago, when a great dissension arose between this world's Writers. One group argued that the Lady Kielle's death created a vacancy that had to be filled if Subreality was to survive; another argued that, considering the apathy of the Writers for the past few years, it was questionable whether Subreality's survival was desirable at all."

Virgils eyes widened. "Truly?"

Peregrine nodded.

"Then you need say no more, Quiris Peregrine," said Virgil. "Clearly, this city was in desperate need of a visitor from its antiquity, one who would remember how little difference the activity of Writers makes to this world's survival. For in truth it would matter little if no other denizen of Reality crossed the threshold of this Hospitium for a hundred years; in the end, it must needs be rediscovered. The land of waking and the land of dreams shall be always intertwined, and there shall always be men eager to discover the point of intersection – for a poet who could never hope to see his words come to life, to fight alongside his heroes and drink in the beauty of his heroines, would be an impoverished creature indeed."

* * *

In the silence that followed Virgil's words, the door of the Café opened again, and an old man poked his head in and said something in Latin. Virgil responded in the same language, and, at the old man's response, nodded, placed a denarius on the table, and, with a nod to the Café staff, walked out the door into the night.

Hank turned to Peregrine, a look of mild embarrassment on his face. "I'm sorry, sir," he said. "I know that Master Virgil said, 'I am satisfied, Father Anchises,' but I have no idea what the old man said."

Peregrine smiled slightly. "Anchises asked Master Virgil if he had warmed himself sufficiently," he said. "Virgil said that he had, and Anchises responded, 'Then we must be on our way. We have a long way to travel before we reach the end of this world's history.'"

Hank grinned. "Did he, now?"

"He did, indeed," said Peregrine. "And now that our esteemed guest has left us, I believe we had best get on with the business of closing up the Café."

"Good idea," said Pinocchio. "Gepetto's probably wondering whether I got myself eaten again."

He went over to the cloakroom, put on his bread-crumb hat and paper jacket, and moseyed out the door. Hank followed shortly after him, but Mary Shiva was detained rearranging the glasses behind the bar, and by the time she got to the door, she and Peregrine were alone in the Café.

"Well," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Yes," said Peregrine.

Mary Shiva hesitated for a moment, as though about to say something more; then she shrugged, turned, and followed her coworkers into the night.

"Yes," murmured Peregrine. "Tomorrow." Once more, only for an instant, an expression of supreme happiness flitted across his face.

He went over to the table, pulled out a fountain pen, and wrote something on a napkin. Then he pulled his robe around his shoulders, turned off the Café lights, and left.

* * *

When Alfred arrived to clean up, about half an hour later, he found a note left on the table, in Peregrine's spidery hand:

_Alfred: Take the chair at the far end of this table and give it a place of honor above Mary Shiva's bar. "We wanderers to a vaster West descry / New worlds, new sorrows; but true hearts that bear / The sacred past, seek Heaven's prophetic will."_

* * *

(1) It should be noted that Virgil reckons throughout by the Roman calendar, which is about 750 years ahead of ours. –Q.

* * *

**Rapid-Fire Disclaimer: **Subreality: Kielle. The Writers' Café: Seraph and Yasmin. Pinocchio: Collodi. Virgil: himself. Hank: Lee. Pergerine: Yasmin. Mary Shiva: Falstaff. Anchises: public domain. Alfred: Kane. "To Virgil": Williams, I think.


	6. T'ā–T'ā, Manager

**Introduction to "T'ā-T'ā, Manager": **The Subreality Café is, without question, the most important element of the Subreality mythos. It is the nexus point of the whole universe, the place where everyone who is anyone winds up sooner or later. (Indeed, according to noted Subreality contributor Phil Foster, it is the third of Neil Gaiman's "four free houses, which owe allegiance to no-one", which should give you some idea of the kind of mojo we're dealing with here.)

Obviously, such an important pub should have vivid and memorable workers, and the Café staff fits the bill. There is the Bouncer, an ominous and imposing figure with a knack for metaphysics and a mysterious past; Major Mapleleaf, a very minor X-Men fictive who took the bartender's job as a way of increasing his name recognition; and the Manager, a nebulous figure who has been Written by so many Writers throughout the centuries as to no longer have any identifying features, not even a sex. This, of course, causes a certain amount of pronoun trouble in Café-centric stories (do you say "he/she", or "it", or what?), and the following story centers around one Café client's proposed solution to this difficulty.

This story was posted on the SCML on 2 March, 2007, and makes reference to the Green Lantern fandom.

* * *

The Manager of the Subreality Café ran a hand through his/her hair. "All right, run this one by me again," he/she said. "You're saying that I should insist that Writers who refer to me in the third person call me _ta_?"

Pope Lucius IV shook his head. "No, not _ta_," he said. "_T'ā_. First tone."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"The Mandarin language recognizes four tones," Pope Lucius explained. "First tone: _t'ā_. Held at a constant high pitch, as if you're imitating an intercom buzzer. Second tone: _t'á?_ Starting low and going upward, as if you didn't quite hear the person and you're checking to make sure you have the right word. Third tone: _t'__ǎ_… A thinking-it-over sort of tone, starts at a sort of medium pitch, goes down and then comes back up again – that's the trickiest of the lot. Fourth tone: _t'à!_ Starts high, and then goes abruptly down, very definite-sounding."

"I see," said the Manager. "And which one am I supposed to use?"

"The first," said Pope Lucius. "And that's very important, because different tones mean different things. If Jael, for instance, were to use _t'à_ instead of _t'ā_, the third sentence of 'The Favor' would read, 'The Manager of the Subreality Café decided that the door needed a relaxing vacation from all the hustle and bustle of the Café.'"

"I have actually thought that on occasion," the Manager commented, with a glance at the bat-winged doors of the Café.

"You may have, at that," said Pope Lucius, "but that's not what Jael's trying to say, is it?"

"No," the Manager acknowledged. "She's trying to say that _I_ needed a relaxing vacation."

"Exactly," said Pope Lucius. "But when she tries to say it, she's forced back on the rather clumsy formulation 'he/she', because English grammar requires a third-person singular pronoun to identify the sex of the person referred to – and, if the person has no sex, English grammar requires the pronoun to identify that, too. Most languages do something similar; if anything, English is unusually mild. In Hebrew, even the verbs have gender."

"Yes, I know," said the Manager, who only the previous night had had to personally eject several rowdy Mossad members with pyrokinetic powers.

"Most languages, I say, are this way," said Pope Lucius. "However, the most widely spoken language on Earth presents no such difficulty. In Mandarin Chinese, the third-person singular pronoun – _t'ā_– is as sexually unspecific as the first- and second-person singular pronouns, and is therefore admirably suited to a deliberately ambiguous creation such as yourself."

The Manager considered. "What about possessive pronouns?" he/she said. "That's where the real bottleneck lies, 90 of the time."

"Simplicity itself," said Pope Lucius. "Just stick a toneless _te_ at the end of the pronoun in question."

"_De_?" the Manager repeated.

"No, _te_," said Pope Lucius. "It's pronounced _de_, but only Communists spell it that way."

The Manager shook his/her head in wonder. "How do you know all this stuff, anyway?" he/she said. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't look like someone who grew up hearing Mandarin spoken at the dinner table."

"No," Pope Lucius admitted, "but I did serve as papal nuncio to the People's Republic of China for quite a few years." He grinned. "It was quite something, when you come to think of it: an Irish prelate serving as the Vatican's ambassador to China, all while holding an honorary membership in the Justice League of America."

The Manager nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, that's something, all right," he/she said. "Still, I suppose anyone who goes around calling himself 'Green Lantern of Earth' shouldn't be surprised if more than one nation makes a claim on his services."

"Quite true," said Pope Lucius. "Just as a prominent figure in a universe heavily dominated by anime fictives oughtn't to resist the use of a Far Eastern language if it happens to suit his/her needs."

The Manager sighed. "All right, all right," he/she said. "Next Thursday, I'll have the Major put up an announcement behind the bar where all the Writers can see it. I can't promise they'll pay attention, but I can at least give it a shot."

Pope Lucius's approving reply was drowned out by a sudden buzzing from his power ring. (It suddenly occurred to the Manager that the Bouncer should have salvaged that from him when he entered the Café. Green Lantern rings were so versatile that it was hard to think of them simply as weapons, although for sheer destructive capacity they beat the H-bomb pallid.)

Pope Lucius frowned and glanced down at the ring, and a bright-green hologram of his Writer emerged from its bezel. "Padre, we could use some ring action down here," said Qoheleth. "Somebody's Angst Monster just poked its head in the window and grabbed Ozara by the leg."

"What color is it?" said Pope Lucius.

"Gray."

"I'll be right down."

The image vanished, and Pope Lucius turned to his host. "Well, it's been a pleasure, Manager," he said. "Ta-ta – or should I say _t'ā_-_t'ā_?"

He grinned, summoned up his trusty winged mule (why he couldn't just use a bubble to fly, like normal members of his Corps, the Manager had no idea), and sped out of the Café in a blaze of green.

The Manager stared after him for a few moments, then shrugged and wandered back into _t'ā-te_ office.

* * *

Disclaimer: Subreality and the Café are Kielle's conceptions, while the Manager was Falstaff's idea and the Green Lantern Corps was John Broome's. Pope Lucius IV, on the other hand, is mine, from my drabble "Benediction".


	7. You Can't Argue with Figures

**Introduction to "You Can't Argue with Figures": **The Bouncer of the Subreality Café is perhaps the most important single character in Subreal literature. First created by Falstaff in the second official Subreality Café story, "Raindrops Keep Falling in My Beer", he has become a figure commanding universal respect - which, of course, hasn't stopped everyone and his mother from trying to sneak into the Café under false pretenses. I would like to think that the following story pays him a little more respect than most, but my readers may judge for themselves.

This story was posted on the SCML on 10 March, 2007, and makes reference only to a fandom that does not yet exist, so no prior knowledge is needed.

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Subreality first blossomed into existence under the nurturing eye of Kielle; the Bouncer first towered before the Café doors on Falstaff's watch; the Mary Sue Test used is Falstaff's and Grayswandir's, with some of the phrasing changed; and Master Maksali, I'm afraid, is entirely my idea.

* * *

A bright-yellow, tentacled serpent floated across the sidewalks of Subreality City. It stopped at a glowing neon sign proclaiming "SUBREALITY CAFÉ — MARY SUE NIGHT", nodded to itself, and drifted over to the door of the Café and tapped the Bouncer on the shoulder.

"Pardon me, my good sentinel," it said, speaking with an unplaceable but decidedly exotic accent, "but may a poor strolling vagabond refresh himself at this establishment?"

The Bouncer stared. "Who're you?"

"My name is Maksali," said the creature. "The Right Venerable Maksali, Master of Mental Disciplines."

The Bouncer frowned at him, as though trying to connect his name and face to some previous encounter. "Do I know your Writer?" he asked after a moment.

"Most probably," said Master Maksali dryly. "His name is Qoheleth."

The Bouncer thought for a moment. Then a look of recognition came into his face. "Yeah, okay," he said. "Got you placed now. You're one of the characters in that TV show he's working on."

Master Maksali bowed in acknowledgment.

"So what're you doin' here?" said the Bouncer. "You're not Written yet, are you? Don't remember seein' anything in _TV Guide _about a variety show with fictional characters as guest stars."

"No, I am not yet Written," said Master Maksali. "I was under the impression, however, that one did not have to be Written to enter the Café this evening."

"Well, that's true enough," the Bouncer admitted. "It's Mary Sue Night tonight, and we kinda want to encourage Writers to leave their Mary Sues unWritten, so if you were a Mary Sue…"

"Which I am," said Master Maksali.

"…you could go in and party with the best of them, but… What?"

"I am a Mary Sue," repeated Master Maksali.

The Bouncer stared slack-jawed at him for a number of seconds, then burst out laughing. "You… you're joshin' me, right?" he said.

Master Maksali shook his head.

"Come off it, Master M.," said the Bouncer. "We both know you're not a Mary Sue. Mary Sues are gorgeous pre-adolescent girls with sickeningly-sweet dispositions, and you're a prickly old alien sea serpent with purple spots."

Master Maksali shook his head. "I'm disappointed in you, Bouncer," he said. "A fictive of your experience should know better than to judge by appearances."

The Bouncer's smile gradually faded as he realized that the ancient wagga-serpent was serious. "Well, what alternative did you have in mind?" he enquired.

"Something with at least a pretense of objectivity," said Master Maksali. "There are a number of reputable tests on the Internet to determine a fictive's level of Mary-Sue-hood…"

"None of which are infallible," the Bouncer hastened to point out.

"Granted, but if a fictive registers safely within the margin of error on one of the more respected, surely he ought to be allowed to fraternize with his fellow disgraces to the name of literature."

The Bouncer frowned at Master Maksali for a long moment, certain there was some trick involved, yet unable to deny the old alien's logic. "Yeah, sure," he said finally. "There's no way you're going to score high enough on any respectable test to get in tonight, anyway."

"You seem quite certain of that," said Master Maksali.

"I am quite certain of it."

"In that case, perhaps we might raise the stakes," said Master Maksali. "Before your… ah… encounter at the Bureau, I believe you quite relished a good wager."

The Bouncer experienced a sudden resurgence of his old annoyance at telepaths. "What did you have in mind?" he said brusquely.

"If I succeed in achieving the necessary number of points," said Master Maksali, "I shall thereby gain the right of entry into the Café not merely tonight, but for all nights to come. Neither my current unWritten nature, nor my intended Mainstream nature, shall interfere with that right."

"And if you don't?" said the Bouncer.

Master Maksali extended his tentacles, as if to say that nothing in the Triune Cosmos was beyond his grasp. "Then you shall name your price," he said.

The Bouncer was intrigued despite himself. He couldn't remember the last time a fictive had made him an offer quite like this; why, it almost reminded him of… But there was no point in recalling that.

"Okay, Master M.," he said. "You've got yourself a deal."

"Excellent," said Master Maksali, and pulled twelve laser-printed pages out of a nearby carrying dimension. "This is a standard Mary-Sue test for original characters. One of its co-creators is among the Three Great Ones by whom Subrealizens swear – is, in fact, the specific Great One who gave you your current incarnation. If any test may be reckoned by a Subrealizen as decisive, surely it ought to be this one."

"Fine," said the Bouncer, who had in fact used Falstaff's OC test on much of that evening's clientèle.

"'Character is of above-average intelligence: 1 point,'" Master Maksali read aloud. "My status as a Master of the Mental Disciplines certainly indicates that."

"Check," said the Bouncer.

"'Character speaks more than four languages: 3 points.' When you have been constantly traversing the universe for over nine centuries, a certain linguistic fluency becomes inevitable."

"Fair enough."

"'Character has traveled extensively: 1 point.' See my comments above."

"Mm-hmm."

"'Character once easily learned a difficult skill (e.g., learned to play guitar in a matter of weeks): 3 points.' I once mastered the Spanish language inside of fifteen seconds; does that qualify?"

The Bouncer whistled. "I should think so. How'd you do that?"

"The easiest thing in the world," said Master Maksali. "I joined my mind to that of Colonel Íniguez, our gardener, and absorbed the contents of his speech centers. It was the Latin American dialect, of course, not proper Castilian, but it served the purpose."

"I see."

"Anyway, to return to the matter at hand: 'Character has an accent relative to his country of residence: 1 point.' For nearly the entire run of _The Savotory Show_, my country of residence is the United States of America, and I certainly cannot claim to have an American accent."

"Wait a minute," said the Bouncer. "I think that question might refer to the country you're a citizen of, not just where you happen to live."

"Even if it does, that is irrelevant," said Master Maksali. "As a licensed vagabond, I am legally a citizen of whatever country I find myself in."

"Oh," said the Bouncer. "Well, that's a handy little trick."

"It is," Master Maksali agreed, "and it is, furthermore, a trick that applies even to Ezchlen nations such as the United States, as the Chrorvusti High Court ruled in Case 4769-13-Ket."

The Bouncer had never heard of Ezchlen nations, the Chrorvusti High Court, or Case 4769-13-Anything, but, before he could ask any questions, Master Maksali had turned back to the printout. "'Character has a physical handicap that does not hinder him significantly: 6 points.'"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" said the Bouncer. "What physical handicap do you have?"

Master Maksali looked at him as if he were an idiot. "I have no legs," he said, speaking slowly to ensure that the Bouncer grasped this point.

"Well, of course not," said the Bouncer irritably, "but that's a characteristic of your species; it's not a handicap."

"Not on Snanpar, perhaps," said Master Maksali, "but on planets where the major cultural centers are located on land – such as, for example, the Earth – it is a most definite handicap, as evinced by the fact that most wagga-serpents who visit terrestrial planets have to get around in little buggies. I, however, do not, since I can lift my own body with my mind as easily as I can wiggle my left tentacle. Ergo, I have a physical handicap that does not hinder me significantly; ergo, six points."

For the first time, the Bouncer had an unpleasant feeling that he might not win this bet after all. "Okay…" he said.

"All right, then," said Master Maksali, and turned his gaze once more downwards. "'Character has a child or children for the greater part of the story: -1 point.'"

The Bouncer perked up; this was more like it. "I didn't know you had a child," he said.

Master Maksali nodded. "Her name is Moss," he said. "She was the daughter of two interstellar refugees who were killed by the Drakden Fever; they entrusted her to my care, and I have raised her as my own daughter ever since."

The Bouncer chuckled. "Sounds like a bit of a Mary Sue herself," he said.

"Actually, no," said Master Maksali. "She has taken this same test, and scored well below the acceptable threshold. And speaking of which: 'Character has a particular skill at which he is the best or among the best: 2 points, with a 2-point bonus if he is widely known for this skill.'"

"The Mental-Master thing?" the Bouncer guessed.

"Correct. I am one of the greatest Mental Masters the universe has ever known," said Master Maksali, in a matter-of-fact tone, "and this fact is attested in virtually every work on the subject published within the last 400 Earth years."

"Well, you can't argue with that," said the Bouncer.

"Certainly, it is difficult," said Master Maksali. "Now we have a list of Mary-Sue-like careers, with points to be added if the character has ever worked in them. In the course of my life, I have held several of the positions listed, but only two of them apply to my sojourn in Savotory Manor: those of rock star and dancer. These are two points each, for a total…"

"Now hang on a minute," said the Bouncer. "I'll accept the rock-star bit, but I'm not going to put you down as a dancer."

Master Maksali frowned. "Whyever not?" he said.

"Dance consists in a conflict between the dancer and gravity," said the Bouncer, remembering a Spider Robinson fictive who had once lectured him on this subject. "If you can nullify gravity with your mind, there's no conflict."

Master Maksali looked at him speculatively, then turned to the Café doors. "Do you mind if I poke my head in for a moment?"

"What do you think?" the Bouncer growled, shifting automatically from Reasonable-Yet-Firm-Custodian-of-a-Hallowed-Subreal-Tradition Mode to Fafnir-Guarding-His-Hoard-from-Siegfried Mode.

Master Maksali laughed. "Oh, don't be so suspicious," he said. "I'm not going to go in; I just want to ask something of your clientèle."

"Oh," said the Bouncer, snapping back into R.Y.F.C.H.S.T. Mode. "Well, okay, I guess I can permit that."

"A thousand thanks," said Master Maksali, and slithered past the Bouncer and slipped his head over the bat-winged doors.

"A word, if I may, ladies!" he called. "This humble person seeks assistance in his dispute with the Café's most reverend Bouncer. I trust there are several among you who have memorized the _Oxford English Dictionary_?"

For a moment, the assembled Mary Sues (most of whom were visiting Subreality for the first time) were too stunned to find themselves being mentally addressed by a yellow, bug-eyed snake-creature to respond. At last, though, three or four of them hesitantly put up their hands.

Master Maksali nodded. "Excellent. You," he said, pointing to a young woman with pointed ears and blue hair, "will you please tell us the definition of the verb 'to dance'?"

The young woman rose and recited coolly, "Dance (dans), verb. The origin of the Romanic verb is obscure; it is generally held (after Diez) to be…"

"Never mind that," said Master Maksali hastily. "All we need is the primary meaning."

"To leap, hop, skip, or glide with measured step and rhythmical movements of the body, usually to the accompaniment of music, either by oneself, or with a partner or in a set."

"Thank you, my dear," said Master Maksali. He blew her a psychic kiss, then uncoiled himself from the Café doors and turned back to the Bouncer.

"Well?" he said. "I, myself, would say that describes my routine to a nicety – except for that reference to 'step', of course. I can't do much in that line, but I do think I achieve a measured slither, which is much the same thing."

The Bouncer moaned.

"I will take that as a concurrence," said Master Maksali. "Now, let me see, where are we… ah, yes. Next comes a list of powers that the Mary Sue frequently possesses. It is difficult to speak definitely on this point, since the limits of my powers are only vaguely defined, so I shall only count those powers that I am slated to use in _Savotory Show_ production numbers. These may change, of course, before they reach the screen, but in the meantime they are all we have to go by. Are you ready?"

The Bouncer sighed and nodded. "Yeah, sure, I'm ready."

"Telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, empathy, shape-shifting abilities, flight, trans-dimensional travel or communication, and super strength or speed."

The Bouncer let out a low whistle. "Well, I'll be…"

Master Maksali shrugged modestly (or conveyed the illusion of doing so, even though he had no elbows). "I am a super-powered alien," he said simply. "That is – how do you say – my shtick."

"I wish I had a shtick like that," the Bouncer muttered.

"In a sense, you do," said Master Maksali. "You are, after all, one of the most powerful and revered figures in Subreality, as evinced by the fact that even so powerful a being as myself must justify himself to you before entering the Café."

It was shameless flattery, of course, but it was flattery of a kind the Bouncer rarely heard: unadorned, matter-of-fact, and evidently sincere. Even alpha fictives are not immune from such things, and the Bouncer's attitude toward the old Snanparite softened considerably as a result.

"Well, get on with your list," he said. "So far you've only got 30 points."

"Considering that 36 is the necessary minimum for a Mary Sue," said Master Maksali, "I would scarcely use the expression 'only' there, myself."

"I dare say," said the Bouncer, "but I'm not yourself, am I?"

"No," Master Maksali agreed. "And, admittedly, the next item on the list is a deduction: 'Character has radically different religious beliefs from his creator: -3 points.' My religious affiliation is with Lobrigian Mysticism, and while Qoheleth has been reluctant to say what, precisely, that is, there seems to be no doubt that it bears little relation to Roman Catholicism."

The Bouncer nodded impassively.

"Next. 'Character is old even by the standards of his race: 3 points.' While wagga-serpents are one of the slower-moving, and therefore longer-living, races in the universe, a lifespan of more than nine Earthly centuries is unusual even for us."

"I'll take your word for it," said the Bouncer.

"'Everyone in the story ends up liking, respecting, or fearing the character: 3 points.' I think I can safely say that I have earned the respect of the other Savotorites; even young Obocord, who stoutly differs with my philosophy of the universe, consents to practice deference to my sensibilities."

"Obocord," the Bouncer repeated. "She's the flute, isn't she?"

"She is."

"Why does she differ with you about the universe?"

Master Maksali hesitated. "Because I represent the Superficial," he said finally, "while Obocord represents the Real."

At this, the Bouncer cracked a smile. "You know, Master M.," he said, "that's the best argument you've made for your Mary-Sue-hood yet."

Master Maksali appeared startled, then laughed. "Yes, I suppose it would be, wouldn't it?" he said. "Much better than 'Character is drawn by his creator much more frequently than any of the creator's other characters: 2 points'."

"Qoheleth draws you a lot?" said the Bouncer.

Once again, Master Maksali gave the appearance of shrugging. "I am a simple character to draw," he said. "Serpentine body, long beak, tentacles, spots; even my eyes need express no particular emotion. In fact," Master Maksali added, "confidentially, I suspect this question may be a weakness in the test; if I were a character that Qoheleth felt particularly strongly about, he would flinch from attempting to express me satisfactorily in pen and ink. To my certain knowledge, he has drawn Alexis Straulogh once in his life, and Carrie Faerie not at all."

The Bouncer shook his head. "No, I don't think it's a weakness in the test," he said. "I think your Writer's just an exception to the usual rule."

"Ah," said Master Maksali. "Well, we always knew that."

"Yeah, I suppose we did," said the Bouncer, staring at the admittedly unique creation in front of him. "Any more things you want to list?"

"Two more," said Master Maksali. "'Character's creator would want to be friends with him, if he was receptive to the creator's friendship: 1 point.' Only a fool," said Master Maksali, "prefers not to be the friend of a Mental Master."

The Bouncer didn't dispute the point. "And the last one?"

"'Character is frequently a mouthpiece for his creator's beliefs or views: 3 points,'" said Master Maksali. "This is an occupational hazard of being an advanced alien being, and has been since the publication of _Micromegas_. Writers enjoy believing that a truly advanced society, free from all Earthly prejudices, would think more or less as they do."

The Bouncer didn't dispute that, either.

"Now," said Master Maksali, "if you care to add up the points, you will find that I have a total score of 39. The necessary minimum for a Mary Sue, as I said before, is 36. If you have any quarrels with my assessment, I invite you to make them now."

The Bouncer reflected. It wasn't a huge margin, but each of its components appeared to be solid – except for the estimate of Master Maksali's powers, and that could just as easily be too low as too high.

And, to tell the truth, he wasn't entirely eager to start quibbling over the figures. After all, here was a fictive who had tried to get into the Café, as so many other fictives had done before him – but instead of attempting to trick him, pester him, or circumvent his authority entirely, he had engaged him in conversation, appealed to his intellect… why, dagnabbit, he had _respected_ him. That was worth more than a few Mary-Sue points any day.

"Okay, then," he said, stepping aside from the doorway. "Welcome to the Café, Master Maksali."

The ancient sea serpent bowed. "My thanks, good Bouncer," he said. "It has been a pleasure discoursing with you." And with that, he slithered through the bat-winged doors, into the Third Free House.

* * *

Later that evening, the Bouncer was playing tic-tac-toe with himself in the dust of the sidewalk when a yellow, sinuous body flowed over the Café doors.

The Bouncer glanced up. "Evening, Master Maksali," he said. "Calling it a night, then?"

"Yes, I think so," said the Mental Master. "I look forward, however, to enjoying your hospitality tomorrow night, and for many nights to come."

It took the Bouncer a moment to remember their bet. "Oh," he said. "Right."

"Incidentally," said Master Maksali, "if I had failed to attain the requisite score, may I ask what your request of me would have been?"

The Bouncer thought about that. What was it that he would have wanted, had Master Maksali gotten to the end of his list and not qualified to enter the Café?

"I think," he said slowly, "that I would have asked you to go home, have a little chat with your Writer, and try again next Wednesday."

Insofar as a creature with a beak can smile, Master Maksali did so. "I see," he said. "Well, then, I assure you I would have done my best to satisfy you."

"Good to know," said the Bouncer.

"May your currents flow ever smoothly, good Bouncer."

"See you round, Master M."

And the wagga-serpent drifted off into the twilight, and the alpha fictive returned to his game, and an old man named Sarungano died in a bar skirmish about three blocks away, and the evening's story was ended.


	8. Fatality

**Introduction to "Fatality": **This story deals with two major aspects of the Subreality mythos, the Subreality City Police Department and the Muse assassin Daemon Hunter. The latter, however, will be more fully dealt with in a later story, so it will be profitable to focus on the SCPD in this introduction.

Since a sizable percentage of Subreality's population consists of super-powered drunks, the prominence of the Subreality City Police Department in Subreality stories is perhaps not surprising. Led by their dauntless Chief of Police, Michael Garibaldi of _Babylon_ _5_ fame, the SCPD's activities have ranged from cleaning up after grisly murders to taking out major angst dealers. (Yes, angst is considered a narcotic in Subreality.) This story is part of the former tradition, but with a mythological twist to flesh it out.

This story was posted on the SCML on 5 April, 2007, and makes direct reference to the Babylon 5, Men in Black, Greek Mythology, R. Austin Freeman, and NCIS fandoms.

* * *

"What've we got on this one, K?" said Garibaldi.

The stone-faced Man in Black rose from his seat and pulled a sheet of notes out of his pocket. "Deceased went by the name of Tania Logsdon," he said. "She'd been lodging in the Blackwood Brownstones housing complex for the past three novella-spans. One of the more personable lodgers, it would seem, although a bit secretive about her past – which isn't unusual in that part of town."

"Did any of the other residents know she was a Siren?" Garibaldi asked.

"Doesn't look like it," said K. "They'd heard her sing a couple of times, and of course that made an impression on them, but they seem to have written that off as a leftover trace of Mary-Sue-ism from a previous incarnation. Certainly they'd never seen her in her native form until her body was discovered – and it probably helped that she didn't have to sing for her supper."

"Why not?" said Garibaldi.

K gave the SCPD bureau chief a significant look. "The Blackwood Brownstones cater predominantly to horror fictives," he said. "There's rarely a shortage of human body parts in the fridge."

Garibaldi tried to think of a satisfactory follow-up comment to that, but failed. Finally, he said, "When was the body discovered?"

"Last night, around five," said K. "At least, it would have been around five in a normal dimension; it was about the time the last customers were just staggering out of the Café. Two Gambits were going up Serling Lane when they noticed what looked like a dead eagle in the middle of the road; when they got up close and found that it was a vulture with the head of a woman, the more sober of the two decided that it might be a good idea to call the gendarmes."

"Mm," said Garibaldi. "They're in custody now, I suppose?"

"Just till we get the full story out of them," said K. "Nobody's seriously accusing them of the crime. For one thing, neither of them seems to have known Logsdon; for another, poisoned darts aren't exactly a typical Gambit M.O."

Garibaldi frowned. "Speaking of which, I should get down to Forensics and see what they've found," he said. "Call me if anything comes up."

K nodded and returned to his desk.

* * *

"'Caf-Pow! Caffeinated Beverage'," SCPD Forensic Analyst John Evelyn Thornedyke read aloud. "Not tea, or coffee, or hot chocolate, or even soda water. 'Caffeinated beverage'. Doesn't that disturb you somewhat?"

With one swift motion, SCPD Forensic Analyst Abby Sciuto snatched the cup out of his hand and took a long, loud, and significant slurp.

Thornedyke arched an eyebrow. "Evidently not."

Abby grinned, then glanced behind Thornedyke at the door to the forensics lab. "Uh-oh, look sharp," she said. "Here comes the King of Babylon."

"Abby! John!" Garibaldi barked, as the two of them leaped instantly to attention. "Found anything for me?"

"Quite a bit, actually," said Thornedyke. He went over to a nearby computer terminal and tapped a few buttons, and the room was suddenly filled with an enormous hologram that looked like – well, it didn't look like much of anything to Garibaldi, but he supposed it meant something to Thornedyke.

"This is a reproduction of a single molecule of the material we found on the dart," said the doctor. "Do you, by any chance, recognize it?"

Garibaldi frowned at the hologram for a moment or two, purely for show, and then shook his head.

"C31-H42-N2-O6," said Thornedyke. "More commonly known as batrachotoxin. It's the substance that certain South American frog species use to dispatch of their would-be predators."

Garibaldi grinned. "The poison of the South American Indians," he said. "Our perp's got style."

"Except," said Abby, "that, according to the mass-spectrometer readings, there was over 200 micrograms of frog poison left on the dart, which was way more than there should have been. So, we ran it through a second analysis, this time using a Z-space mass sensor–" here she gestured to a rather frightening-looking piece of equipment bearing the logo of the Andalite Planetary Republic "–and it turned out that the spectrometer readings had been skewed by a factor of 5.73."

Garibaldi frowned. "That's the skew ratio of Real substances."

"Exactly," said Thornedyke. "This was not merely a case of buying poisoned darts from some jungle-adventure fictive on Subreigh Alley. The poison that killed Tania Logsdon was imported directly from Reality."

"Which means," said Abby, "that even if a Writer wanted to revive Vulture Girl, he couldn't Write away the poison that was keeping her dead. He'd have to take her body apart molecule by molecule, extract the batrachotoxin manually, with tweezers or something, and then put her back together again in the right order – which would be really a pain, I think."

Garibaldi looked from one of them to the other. "Someone wanted her to stay dead," he said.

Thornedyke and Abby nodded in unison.

Garibaldi sighed. "Well, that narrows down our suspect list somewhat," he said. "Whoever the murderer was, it had to be someone who had access to Reality. Most likely that means a Writer, although it could be a rogue Muse or Archetype…"

At this juncture Garibaldi's communicator vibrated, and he pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open. "Garibaldi," he said.

"Chief, you might want to get up here," said K. "There's someone in your office who wants a word with you."

Something in K's tone told Garibaldi that this was more than Wilson Fisk garnering support for his mayoral bid. "I'll be right there," he said. He flipped the communicator off, told Abby and Thornedyke to "Keep me posted", and departed from the lab with all reasonable haste.

* * *

"All right, this had better be good," Garibaldi said aloud as he entered his office. "I'm working on a fairly spectacular murder at the moment, so unless you…"

Then he caught sight of the slim, golden-haired figure sitting in his visitors' chair, and his voice trailed off rather abruptly.

"Hello, Michael," said Calliope, with the slight upward flick of the lips that was probably as close to a polite smile as she was capable of coming.

Garibaldi reached out a hand to steady himself against his desk. "Um… hello, Your Majesty," he said. "I'm sorry, I wasn't really expecting you. We haven't had a visit from you since…" He hesitated, unsure how to finish the sentence. "Since you were killed" didn't quite seem appropriate, while "since you faked your own murder" started the conversation off on entirely the wrong footing. "Since the incident with the marble," he concluded lamely.

"No, you haven't," said Calliope, in a tone implying that this was just fine with her, "and, if it hadn't been for that 'fairly spectacular murder' of yours, you would not be getting one now."

Garibaldi blinked. "What's your connection with the Logsdon case?"

Calliope sighed. "Michael, please don't waste my time," she said. "Surely you realize the implications of a Siren's being murdered."

"Um… not really."

"I'll spell it out for you," said Calliope. "The young woman whom you know as 'Tania Logsdon' is my niece."

Garibaldi's eyes widened as he grasped the point.

"Specifically, she is the daughter of my sister Melpomene by the river god Acheloüs. A man of your education has no excuse for not knowing that."

Garibaldi considered mentioning that the Musae were generally considered _minor_ deities, and that the people who actually cared which of them had which child by whom were the Oxbridge equivalent of baseball fans who could list the Brooklyn Dodgers's entire starting lineup for 1953, but he doubted that Calliope would consider this much of an excuse, so he settled for a murmured apology and an expression of condolences.

"Thank you," said Calliope. "Now, if you'll just turn Sipitaë's body over to me so we can give her a proper burial, I'll be on my way."

"Now wait a minute," said Garibaldi. "Our Forensics staff still has to finish its investigations…"

"Oh, that won't be necessary," said Calliope. "We already know who the murderer was."

Garibaldi stared. "You do?"

"Certainly."

"Well, why haven't you told us?" Garibaldi demanded. "If there's a murderer running around Subreality City, the SCPD needs to know about it!"

Calliope smiled frostily. "No doubt that is generally a sound policy, Michael," she said, "but it is not quite applicable here. You see, you already know about this particular murderer."

Garibaldi hesitated, mentally running through all the major serial killers currently on the loose in Subreality: Blaüch, Telbar, the Gremlin, Hunter…

"Hunter?" he queried.

Calliope nodded.

"What would Hunter want with Logsdon?" said Garibaldi. "I thought he only killed Muses."

"I believe I just said that Sipitaë is half-Muse…"

"Yeah, but she's not directly connected to you," said Garibaldi, "and she's not going into the family business, so how would Hunter's grudge against you extend to her?"

"I'm afraid that's privileged information," said Calliope, in a tone of finality. "Now, about the body…"

Garibaldi walked over to the far side of his office and pressed an intercom, and the logo of the SCPD was replaced by a scene of the interior of the forensics lab.

"Abby?" Garibaldi called.

Abby glanced up, surprised. "Yeah, Chief?"

"You know that IB shield we set up around the forensics lab in case a Writer ever turned rogue on us?"

Abby hesitated, then nodded. "Oh, yeah, sure."

"Well, I want you to activate it poste-haste," said Garibaldi, "and then I want you not to deactivate it until I give the word. Nobody gets into the forensics lab until I say so, get it?"

Abby grinned. "Got it."

"Good."

The screen blinked back to neutral, and Garibaldi turned back to Calliope. "Still privileged information, Your Highness?"

Calliope glowered at him. "Michael," she said, "you are a low and scurrilous knave."

Garibaldi grinned. "I do my best."

Calliope sighed. "Fine," she said. "Hear the story, for all the good it may do you."

Garibaldi silently let out a Minbari war whoop. He was going to pay for this in the future, he was sure, but that didn't change the fact that right now he was one of only a handful of fictives who had ever successfully blackmailed the Queen of the Muses. Where he came from, that kind of thing was a major status symbol.

He pulled up a chair and sat down next to Calliope, an almost childishly eager expression on his face.

* * *

"It was the sixth century A.D.," said Calliope. "Rome had just fallen, the Germanic barbarians were coming in, and my wayward son Daemon Hunter had just come out of his hiding place in Asia Minor and started his guerrilla war against his heritage."

"Not a good time to be a goddess," Garibaldi commented.

Calliope shook her head. "There wasn't much my sisters and I could do about the fall of Western civilization," she said, "and we had pretty much given it up as a lost cause – we had never heard of Skelling Michael, of course – but we did think we could handle Daemon, and it came as a bit of a shock to us when party after party of assassins we sent out came back dead, insane, hideously mutilated, or some combination of the three. After a while, we started to think that Uncle Hades had put some kind of protection on him."

Garibaldi nodded. He'd occasionally thought the same thing himself.

"Well, one day the nine of us were gathered in conference on Mount Olympus," said Calliope, "when the door of our chamber burst open and the Archetypal Wise Old Man walked in, his flickering face looking like he had seen a ghost. He came and bent over our table, and, staring directly at me, he whispered, 'Behold the Ravager, son of the Nine, slain by the Rectifier, son of the Nine.' Then he straightened up, nodded to my sisters, and left as quietly as he had come."

Garibaldi let out a low whistle. "I'm impressed," he said. "We've never had an Archetype march into SCPD headquarters and make a mysterious pronouncement – well, unless you count that time Mary Sue got a little tipsy on New Year's Eve and started proposing marriage to each member of TWAT."

"Give yourselves time," said Calliope grimly. "Your day will come."

Garibaldi grinned. "So," he said. "'Behold the Ravager, son of the Nine, slain by the Rectifier, son of the Nine.' That means that Hunter was destined to be killed by one of your sons, right?"

"Not precisely," said Calliope. "Remember, the Wise Old Man was speaking in the Archetypal language, which tends to be quite whimsical about what it specifies and what it keeps vague. In this case, the word that I've translated 'son' could just as easily mean 'daughter' – but it could _not_ mean 'grandson' or 'granddaughter' or 'distant descendant'. Nor, for that matter, could it mean 'nephew' or 'first cousin once removed', so there was no question of Eros, or Alcestis – let us say – bumping off their co-generationist. The prophecy was vague about sex, but in all other respects it was quite definite: Daemon Hunter would one day be killed by a first-generation descendant of one of the Musae."

"Huh," said Garibaldi. "So what's the problem?"

"The problem," said Calliope, "is that it is virtually impossible to keep a secret on Mount Olympus. Daemon learned about the prophecy within a week after it was made, and proceeded to try and stave off his doom by killing every first cousin he had. He didn't dare do it directly, of course – he was always a bit of a coward – but whenever you hear a myth about a child of one of the Nine being murdered, you can safely assume that Daemon was behind it somehow. Remember the Thracian women who tore Orpheus limb from limb? That was his idea. Boreas deflecting the discus so that Hyacinthus got his head lopped off? The same."

Garibaldi had never heard of Boreas, Hyacinthus, or the Thracian women, and his sole knowledge of Orpheus came from a former girlfriend who had been an Offenbach fan, but he judged it prudent to seem impressed. "Wow."

"Wow, indeed," said Calliope. "After a few years of this, our children began to retreat into various safe places scattered across the three universes, and the furor over them died down – but Daemon has never forgotten the prophecy, and when the opportunity presents itself, he will not hesitate to strike at his cousins once again."

She sighed, and looked up at the intercom. "And this was a perfect opportunity," she said. "Poor Sipitaë could never endure the thought of spending her life huddled in Room 069 of the Hotel Denouement, or on Whileaway during the plague. She had to take risks, stretch her wings, play with fire. I suspect Daemon was out lurking in the shadows of Serling Lane when he heard Sipitaë singing to herself on her way back from the Café; he recognized it as the voice of one of Melly's daughters, his instincts kicked in, he reached for the surest, most long-range weapon he possessed, and the next instant there was one less threat to his welfare walking the Triune Cosmos."

She turned to Garibaldi. "Does that answer your question?"

"Yeah, I guess so," said Garibaldi.

"In that case…"

"There is one other thing, though," said Garibaldi. "If Hunter considers every child of the Nine to be a mortal threat, what's the deal with Muses like Frank, or Kel, or Roxy? Why hasn't he tried to off them yet?"

"He has," said Calliope. "Repeatedly. Just because you have never heard about the attempts doesn't mean they didn't occur – and, in fact, you have heard about one of the more prominent attempts. Do you remember the incident that first brought Wright R. Blaüch to Subreality's attention?"

Garibaldi blinked. "You mean that when Blaüch attacked Roxy, Hunter was behind it?"

"Exactly," said Calliope. "Just as he was behind the caliban attack on Heliopolis while Kelvren was ambassador there, or the bomb in Rossi's room in the HOSD. Why, in the brief time that Percicus has been assigned to Rossi, the two of them have dodged at least two dozen assassination attempts."

Garibaldi stared. "You're kidding."

"No, I'm not." Calliope smiled faintly. "Never underestimate my nephew, Michael. He may be a drunken, hedonistic reptile, but no-one can accuse him of not having what it takes to survive – and to protect those he loves."

"Oh," said Garibaldi. There didn't seem to be much else he could say.

There was a moment of silence, and then Calliope asked, "Is your insatiable curiosity appeased now, Michael?"

Garibaldi considered. "For the time being, yeah."

"Then I may go down to the forensics lab and fetch my niece's body?"

"Sure."

"Thank you."

Calliope rose and turned to leave the office. Then she frowned, and turned back to Garibaldi. "Don't you want to turn the intercom back on and tell Miss Sciuto she can deactivate the IB field?"

Garibaldi adopted a puzzled expression. "Why?"

There was a moment's pause, and then Calliope said, in a voice tinged with cold steel, "There is no IB field, is there?"

"Well, there is," said Garibaldi, "but it covers the whole building, not just the forensics lab. Plus, the only way to activate it is through a control panel in the basement, and Abby doesn't have access there."

Calliope's face was as hard as Fantastican selenium. "In other words," she said, "you have deceived me, blackmailed me, and forced me to compromise the security of my sisters' children, for no reason other than your own incurable nosiness."

"Wrong," said Garibaldi. "I had a perfectly good reason: I'm the SCPD Bureau chief, and Hunter's the most notorious murderer in Subreal history. I don't know about you, Your Majesty, but I don't like finding Muses' bodies sprawled out in back alleys, and if I have to resort to a little blackmail to keep that from happening, I will."

"I see," said Calliope. "And just what makes you think that you will be able to capture a murderer who has successfully evaded justice for over a millennium?"

"I have to try," said Garibaldi.

Calliope reached out and jerked the door open with such force that the room shuddered. "Well, the next time you try, you may want to think twice before using the daughters of Zeus as your patsies," she said. "Good day, Mr. Garibaldi."

And she turned and strode from the office.

Garibaldi sat for a moment, following her with his eyes until she disappeared from view. Then he rolled his chair over to his desk and pressed a button on his computer console.

"Computer," he said, "run a simultaneous search, categories Greco-Roman mythology, popular fiction, and Collegium records. Locate and list all known first-generation descendants of the nine minor goddesses known as the Musae…"

* * *

Quick-Fire Disclaimer: Subreality - Kielle. SCPD - Foster. Garibaldi - Straczynski. K - Sonnenfeld or perhaps Cunningham. Thornedyke - Freeman. Sciuto - Bellisario. Z-space and Andalites - Applegate. Fisk - Lee. Calliope - Greek mythology. "The incident with the marble" - Paradoqz. Blaüch - Static-Pulse. Gremlin - also Static-Pulse. Telbar - Corone. Hunter - Willey. Hotel Denouement - Handler as Snicket. Whileaway - Russ. Roxy - Static-Pulse. Kelvren - Farli (I think). Rossi - herself. Frank - Rossi (more or less). Fantastican selenium - Ende. Anything else - most likely mine.


	9. The Ambitions of an Androgyne

**Introduction to "The Ambitions of an Androgyne":** As with any collaborative writing endeavor, Subreality is not uniformly consistent. One of the more interesting points of disagreement concerns the identity of the person working behind the bar at the Subreality Café: sometimes (as noted in the introduction to "T'ā-T'ā, Manager") it's Major Mapleleaf, sometimes it's someone known simply as "the Bartender", and (most baffling of all) sometimes it's a character who is identified as the Bartender, but who is referred to throughout by gender-neutral pronouns, implying that it is really the Manager. The following story is an attempt to reconcile all these disparate opinions.

This story was posted on the SCML on 26 May, 2007, and makes reference to the X-Men fandom.

* * *

With an expression of sublime fatigue on her musteline face, presumptive Collegium salutatorian Erineae oozed into the Subreality Café and hopped up onto one of the tall stools by the bar.

"_Thirty-five millilitres of straight Scotch,"_ she said. "_And put wings on it, barperson."_

The last word was not, as it might have seemed, a ludicrous concession to political correctness, but a simple acknowledgement of a fact: The current Bartender of the Subreality Café was neither a man nor a woman. Indeed, the closer one studied the Bartender's face for specific sexual indicators, the fewer details of that face one retained upon looking away.

This extraordinary person frowned sympathetically as he/she poured out Erineae's drink. "Tough day?" he/she enquired.

"_Not tough, exactly,"_ said Erineae. "_I've simply had one of the most miserable testing experiences of my life, and now I intend to wipe it from my memory as quickly as possible."_

"Ah," said the Bartender. "Let me guess. Tristram?"

"_I don't know what the man wants from me,"_ said Erineae. "_I'm not a warrior Muse. I acknowledge that. If he wants to persecute someone for not living up to his expectations of gritty, realistic battle scenes, why doesn't he pick someone who at least feigns competence in that department?"_

"If that's the way you feel," the Bartender said, "why did you sign up for his class in the first place? I'm pretty sure Advanced Battle-Scene Inspiration is still an optional part of the Collegium curriculum."

Erineae sighed. "_I don't know why," _she said. "_Because it was there, I guess. I'll sign up for just about anything if it stands still long enough. It's like a tic or something."_

"Mm," said the Bartender. "Well, nothing could be fairer than that."

There was a moment of silence as Erineae lapped up her drink. Under ordinary circumstances, the Bartender would have drifted over to the other side of the bar and tended to another customer, but, as it happened, the only other customer was a Wolverine fictive who had been sitting at the far end of the bar for the past three days, and who had started growling ominously every time the Bartender had attempted to engage him in conversation. For obvious reasons, the androgyne was not eager to tend to this particular costumer, and so he/she was searching for an excuse to remain hovering over Erineae.

"This is your last year at the Collegium, isn't it?" he/she said.

Erineae nodded. "_Unless Headmistress Calliope decides to keep me back a year,"_ she said, "_which doesn't seem likely at the moment, but with someone of her… ah… mercurial temperament, you never really know."_

The Bartender acknowledged the truth of this statement. "Still," he/she said, "supposing that everything stays on track, what do you plan to be doing once you've left the I.C.'s hallowed halls?"

Erineae sighed with all the weariness of a college student who has heard that question five dozen times and still doesn't have a presentable answer. "_I don't know,"_ she said. "_I suppose I'll find a place to live, some apartment or something on the Far East Side; then I'll find some good, steady work that doesn't require opposable thumbs – tour guide at the RSIA, maybe – and then I'll just wait for that magical day when a Writer calls my name, I run to his arms, and my life begins in earnest."_

"Sounds like a plan," said the Bartender approvingly.

"_How about you?"_ said Erineae. Then she laughed, and shook her head. "_Wow, what a stupid question,"_ she said. "_I must really be tired, if I'm asking the Bartender of the Subreality Café what his plans for the future are."_

The Bartender arched his/her eyebrows. "You don't think I have any?" he/she said.

Erineae frowned. "_Well, why would you need them?"_ she said. "_You're a fixture of the Subreal universe. If there's anyone who doesn't need to take care for the morrow, it's you."_

"Yes, I suppose so," said the Bartender. "Just the same, I…" He/she shot a furtive glance around the nearly empty Café, and lowered his/her voice to a whisper. "Can you keep a secret?" he/she said.

"_Sure,"_ said Erineae, thinking of the Collegium librarian, Dr. Crow. "_Why?"_

The Bartender leaned toward her, and lowered his/her voice still further. "Well, I wouldn't like this to go any further," he/she said, "but there's a good chance that I might become the Manager of this Café fairly soon."

If he had said that there was a good chance that the bar might become a Komodo dragon fairly soon, Erineae would not have been more startled. In fact, she would have been considerably less startled, since the nature of Subreal matter was notoriously mercurial, but running gags, once they were established, were all but eternal.

"_Is that possible?"_ she whispered.

"Certainly," said the Bartender. "While discarding or ignoring Café staff members is an artistic failing, having them retire is simply another plot development – and the current Manager has been dropping numerous hints lately that that plot development will be taking place quite soon, probably within the month. After that, it's just a question of who takes over his old job – and, to date, the Cook hasn't expressed a whole lot of interest."

"_Huh,"_ said Erineae. "_So who's going to get your job, then? The Bartender's Assistant?"_

The Bartender hesitated. "Well, that's what everybody expects to happen," he/she said, "but to tell the truth, there's a minor fictive out of _Alpha Flight_ that I've got my eye on – a fellow named Mapleleaf."

"_Major Mapleleaf?"_ said Erineae, surprised. "_The guy who ran the pretzel stand at the St. Amand's Day Festival last year?"_

"That's him," said the Bartender. "By all accounts, he brews a mean martini – and it'd be nice to have someone working here who had a real name for a change. So what's probably going to happen is that the B.A.'ll be behind the bar for a few weeks while Mapleleaf moves into the neighborhood and gets settled, and then he'll take over from there."

"_Oh,"_ said Erineae. "_Well, good luck to all three of you, then."_

She might have said more, but at that juncture the bat-winged doors of the Café burst open, and a red-haired tornado burst inside.

"_There_ you are, Jess!" said Jasmine North. "Where have you been all this time?"

Erineae blinked. "_Exactly where I told you I was going to be,"_ she said. "_Sinking into peaceful oblivion with the assistance of our able Bartender and Mr. Glen Livet."_

"Well, you're going to have to take a break from that," said Jasmine. "A life-and-death situation has just come up. The fate of nations hangs in the balance. Reality as we know it is in imminent peril."

Erineae rolled her eyes. "_You lost your Musal Theory notes, didn't you?"_

"Yes!" Jasmine half-shrieked. "I had them all nicely laid out on my bed, alphabetized, color-coded, and numbered in order of importance, and then a Dicraeosaurus poked his head into my window, snagged them with his trunk, and _ate_ them!"

Erineae sighed. "_See, Jasmine, this is why sane people don't become Plot Twist Muses,"_ she said. "_Life is hard enough without your subconscious mind doing these kinds of things to you."_

"Erineae, are you going to just stand there and pontificate at me, or are you going to _help_ me?" Jasmine demanded. "I have a ten-page MT essay due by 5:00 tomorrow afternoon! If I don't scrape at least a C, Professor Wiseone will flunk and/or dismember me! I am in desperate straits here! Remember the Code of the Woosters!"

"_Okay, okay,"_ said Erineae. "_Calm down. I'm sure Dr. Crow will let you back into the library if I explain the situation to him."_ There was something significant in her tone as she said this, and the Bartender suspected there was more to that assurance than a casual listener might have thought.

Jasmine let out a deep sigh. "You are a lifesaver, Erineae," she said.

"_Yes, I know,"_ said Erineae. "_Well, Bartender, I guess I'll be seeing you later. Don't take any wooden nickels."_

She leapt down from her stool, and she and Jasmine rushed out of the Café. The Bartender waved goodbye to them, and then, with the reluctance of one whose alternatives have been exhausted, walked over to the far end of the bar where the Wolverine fictive was sitting.

"All right, sir, look," he/she said. "Since you've gotten here, you've had three Vodka Collinses, two Cosmopolitans, eight large glasses of mulled gin, and twenty-seven tankards of Guinness. Now, I understand you have a healing factor, but unless you also have free access to Scrooge McDuck's money bin, you might want to think about calling it quits."

The Wolverine looked up at him/her, bleary-eyed but still grimly lucid. "What're ya gonna do, huh?" he said. "Ya gonna throw me out? Yer boss ain't gonna like that. Way I heard it, me and my replicas in this dimension got him under a pretty heavy debt of gratitude."

This was true enough. Before the Manager of the Subreality Café had attained his current position, he had been a bit player in a New Mutants fanfic whose life Wolverine had saved, and, as a result, Wolverines had pretty much gotten a free pass at the Café ever since his accession. This had been known to cause plenty of trouble, but there was no talking him out of it.

The Bartender was well aware of this, but he/she nonetheless intended to try and talk his/her way around it. Before he/she could begin, however, Leonard the Subreality Telephone began to ring, and, with a sigh, he/she went over to the little hook on the pub's east wall and picked up its receiver.

"Yeah, Subreality Café, what is it?" he/she said.

There was a pause.

"You're kidding," said the Bartender. "He just decided that five minutes ago?"

Another pause, and then the Bartender glanced over at his final customer and grinned. "Well, isn't that convenient," he/she said. "Tell him thank you for me, would you?"

The person on the other end presumably agreed, and the Bartender hung up Leonard's receiver, still smiling broadly.

"Who was that?" said the Wolverine.

Without answering, the Bartender walked over to a spot next to the shot-glass cabinet and pressed a button on the intercom.

"Bouncer?" he/she said. "This is your new Manager speaking. We've got an adamantium-clawed lowlife in here that needs taking care of…

********

Disclaimer: The Subreality Café is Kielle's. The Collegium and Tristram are Yasmin M.'s. The Manager (who was once the Bartender), the Bartender (who was once the Bartender's Assistant), Leonard the Subreality Telephone (who I suspect was once the Ruler of Oz), the Bouncer (who will always be the Bouncer), and the Cook (who knows) are Falstaff's. Wolverine is Stan Lee's. Dr. Crow is Tracy Sue's. Major Mapleleaf is Scott Lobdell's. Jasmine is CG's. Everything else is mine.


	10. Rite of Passage, or Jeudi in Disguise

**Introduction to "Rite of Passage":** From time immemorial, Writers have only been allowed into the Subreality Café on Thursdays. And, from time equally immemorial, Writers have been unsatisfied with this restriction, and have tried to force or connive their way into the SC on any of the other six days of the week. It seemed incumbent on me, sooner or later, to attempt to do this - but I like to think that, as in "You Can't Argue with Figures", I managed to do so without in any way diminishing the Bouncer.

This story was posted on 8 July (the Feast of Beatus Eugenius III), 2007, and makes reference to no particular fandom.

* * *

"Refresh my memory, Erineae," whispered Qoheleth. "Why are we doing this?"

"_It is your duty, Solomon," _said Erineae solemnly. "_You are the inheritor of a great legacy, and you will be doing that legacy a tremendous disservice if you do not, at least once in your life, attempt to talk your way past the Bouncer on a night other than Thursday."_

Qoheleth sighed. "I wish Kielle had had that on the SCML summary back when I first subscribed," he said. "I might have thought twice if there had been a sign somewhere saying, 'Warning: By joining this group, you acknowledge yourself honor-bound to someday go up to an alpha fictive approximately the size of your house and try to convince him that today is yesterday, in return for which you will be allowed to enter a building specializing in an Australian beer that you don't even drink.'"

"_Well, no-one's saying you _have _to drink Guinness,"_ said Erineae. "_There have been teetotalers at the Café before. Not many of them, I grant you, and they tend to provide considerable merriment for us serious Subrealizens, but they do exist."_

"I stand comforted," said Qoheleth, in a tone strongly suggesting that he stood no such thing.

"_Glad I could help."_

With a deep intake of breath, Qoheleth straightened his Roman collar and began to stride in a purposeful manner toward the entrance to the Subreality Café.

* * *

When he got there, he was surprised to find that the Bouncer, rather that keeping both eyes firmly fixed on the road in front of him so as to intimidate uninvited Mainstreams, was searching the skies above him with a pair of high-powered binoculars. Qoheleth pondered this scene for several moments, then decided that it called for comment.

"Does the Manager know you're out here stargazing on company time?" he enquired.

The Bouncer lowered his binoculars and glanced vaguely in Qoheleth's direction. "Oh, hey, Your Creativity," he said. (Qoheleth later determined that this was an archaic form of address for Writers that the Bouncer occasionally used when he wasn't feeling particularly belligerent.) "Sorry about that. I got a confidential tip-off this morning that a bunch of Willey's ex-fictives had gotten bored with their Writer's recent attack of respectability and were planning to lay siege to the Café in the good old Boupoinikm style sometime tonight."

"Ah," said Qoheleth. "Well, I hope they enjoy themselves. In the meantime, though, would you mind if I…" He gestured significantly toward the interior of the Café.

The Bouncer's expression darkened. "Of course I would mind," he said. "You're only allowed in the Café on Thursdays, and today's Friday."

"Well, now," said Qoheleth, "I would say there's two schools of thought about that."

"O-ho," said the Bouncer. "You're trying to tell me it's not Friday, are you?"

"No, no," said Qoheleth. "I acknowledge that it may be Friday. I merely assert that if it is Friday, then it's also Thursday."

The Bouncer blinked. "You wanna try that again?"

Qoheleth took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. "Let's start at the beginning. There's no time in Subreality, right?"

"Right," said the Bouncer.

"So, if you want to know what day of the week it is at any point, you have to determine what day it was seven days ago."

"Exactly," said the Bouncer, "and seven days ago it was Friday, not Thursday, so good-bye." And he began to raise his binoculars again.

"Hang on," said Qoheleth. "Seven days ago there was no time in Subreality, either, so that day was reckoned by what day it was seven days before that, right?"

"Um, yeah," said the Bouncer.

"And that was determined by the day seven days before that, and so on."

"Yeah, of course," said the Bouncer. "That's the only way you can run things in a universe where all diagrams are meaningless. Look, is all this adding up to an argument, or are you just trying to distract me until the Cabbage-Patch Kids arrive?"

"Just a second," said Qoheleth. "I'm assuming this has been going on for more than 860 years; am I right?"

The Bouncer drew himself up proudly. "This has been going on since the first Writers stumbled their way into Subreality nearly three thousand years ago," he said.

"Aha," said Qoheleth. "Well, then, if it was going on in 1147, then you're going to have to let me in, because today is Thursday as well as Friday."

The Bouncer stared. "Now how in the name of Charlie Kaufman do you figure that?"

"Because" said Qoheleth, "in 1147, Pope Eugenius III entered Paris on a Friday. Friday at that time was a day of abstinence, and Pope Eugenius thought that the people of Paris should have an opportunity to celebrate his arrival in high style, so he officially declared that that Friday was a Thursday."

The Bouncer snorted. "Sheesh," he said. "You wanna talk about an abuse of papal power…"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Qoheleth. "The pope has always had the authority to alter Christian observances as he sees fit, and the outworking of the Christian calendar is certainly a Christian observance."

"I understand that he has the power," said the Bouncer. "I'm just saying it's an abuse. Now, Gregory XIII cutting ten days out of 1584 to get the sun back in line, that was a legitimate exercise."

"H'm," said Qoheleth. "Well, in any case, that was what he did – which means, of course, that, by Subreal standards, the next Friday after that was also a Thursday, since it was seven days after that other Thursday – and then the next Friday after that was also a Thursday, and so on and so on, down through the centuries, to this very day – which is, as you very properly point out, a Friday, and therefore also a Thursday. And since Writers have always been allowed in the Café on Thursdays, it follows that they must be allowed in today. So if you could take two paces sideways so that I could exercise this privilege, I would be much obliged to you."

The Bouncer stood motionless for a few minutes, staring at the former Scroll-Keeper-designate. Then he bounced lightly on the soles of his feet for a number of moments. Then he rested his chin thoughtfully in his hand. Then he spoke.

"Okay, listen," he said. "Don't get the impression this is going to be a regular routine or anything – but since that's one of the more unique arguments I've ever heard, and because I'm a good Catholic, this once I will let you in on the Pope Eugenius loophole."

"You are a wondrously sporting fellow, Bouncer," said Qoheleth.

"I know," said the Bouncer. "I amaze even myself sometimes." He stepped to one side, and Qoheleth and Erineae passed through the bat-winged doors of the Subreality Café.

"_Well done, young Padawan,"_ Erineae whispered. "_Today, you are a Writer."_

"Glad to hear it," Qoheleth whispered back.

He began to glance around for a table, but was distracted by a sudden commotion near the doors. He turned, and realized that a horde of small, wrinkly, off-white creatures had landed in a flying saucer (literally; Qoheleth could see the blue-and-white floral pattern along the saucer's rim). They were now attempting to muscle their way into the Café, and the Bouncer was stoutly denying them entrance.

"Foolish Bouncer!" one of the creatures hissed. "No mere alpha fictive can impede the Puffball Brigade!" With that, it opened up a hole in the top of its head and blew a cloud of noxious yellow spores at the Bouncer, who reeled backward, gasped dramatically several times, and fell to the ground, unconscious. The creatures sent up a loud cheer, and scurried with unnatural speed through the bat-winged doors.

Qoheleth glanced at Erineae. "You know, something just occurred to me," he said. "Our agreement was only that I should talk my way into the Café. There's no real reason why I should stick around after I've done so."

"_True,"_ Erineae agreed. "_And since, as you have so wisely pointed out, you do not drink Guinness, the Café as a place can hold no real attractions for you. Therefore, should you choose to vacate it immediately, I, while of course being intensely annoyed with you for the remainder of our natural lives, should refrain from making any actual complaint."_

"Splendid," Qoheleth said, and, with awe-inspiring speed, grabbed a napkin off a nearby table, whipped out his Philippians pen, scribbled down a few words, and vanished from the newly renamed Club Hypermolecular Puffball.

* * *

Disclaimers: Subreality, the Café, and the Bouncer belong to all the usual people. Jess Willey belongs to himself, who will probably not be amused with me for dredging up his past in so shameless a fashion. (Sorry, old man.)


	11. No Rest for the Wicked

**Introduction to "No Rest for the Wicked":** In a universe where fictional characters are forever popping in and out of bars, a watering hole dedicated specifically to villains was probably inevitable. Chameleon, in his 2001 story "I Don't Think We're in Riverdale Anymore, Archie", is credited with first instituting this vital attribute of the Subreality mythos; in his story, it was called the Villains' Café, but somewhere along the line it picked up the more distinctive label of "The Villains' Bailiwick". In many respects, however, it still parallels the Subreality Café fairly directly - including, as Malcar Eight-Four-Five from my story "Sacred Host" learns in the following tale, the occasional intransigence of its bouncer.

This story was posted on the SCML on 30 October, 2007, and makes reference to the Animorphs, Franz Kafka, and Green Lantern fandoms.

* * *

«Nervous, Malcar?» Teresa Sickles whispered to her Controller as the two of them walked up the Fairway of Forty Fantastic Foulnesses.

«Don't be ridiculous,» snapped Malcar Eight-Four-Five.

«You are, though,» said Teresa. «Don't try to keep secrets from someone you're sharing a brain with.»

Malcar made a mental noise that was rather the telepathic equivalent of a sneer.

«It's understandable, of course,» said Teresa. «You've just been Written, and now you're going to try and mingle with the grossest and most notorious evil-livers in literature. That'd make anyone uncomfortable.»

«I'm glad it meets with your approval,» said Malcar.

«It doesn't, actually,» said Teresa, ignoring the sarcasm in her Controller's "voice". «Just because something is natural, that doesn't make it good. Our Taxxon confessors could tell you something about that.»

«Teresa,» Malcar hissed, «I'm going to this pub to relax and throw back a little firewater with my fellow servants of darkness, not to listen to you spout your puerile theology all evening.»

«Okay, okay. All I'm saying is, remember what Eric and Ozara told you. The Bailiwick isn't a good place to appear nervous.»

And the annoying thing was that she was right. Malcar's fellow Qohelethean antagonists, Ozara the Orange and Eric "The Minstrel Boy" Connor, had been very careful to emphasize to her — had in fact rather enjoyed emphasizing to her, she thought — that anyone who betrayed weakness in the Villains' Bailiwick was simply asking to be sliced into tiny pieces and mixed into the next evening's Casserole Surprise.

It was, accordingly, with the same cold regality that Snow White's stepmother had displayed to such advantage that she strode to the brass doors and said to the bouncer, a sinister Kafka fictive known as the Doorkeeper of the Law, "Excuse me, sir, but if you would take three steps sideways, I would have a much better opportunity to enter this establishment."

The Doorkeeper of the Law turned and stared at her coldly. "I don't recognize you," he said.

"No, I don't suppose you would," said Malcar. "I was only Written three days ago."

"Ah," said the Doorkeeper, and pulled a questionnaire out of his pocket. "Your name?"

"Malcar Eight-Four-Five."

"A Yeerk, eh?" murmured the Doorkeeper. "Your claim to villainy?"

"My central literary function is to break the spirit of a brave and innocent child," said Malcar.

"Satisfactory," said the Doorkeeper. "Are you carrying any weapons?"

Malcar reached into her book bag and pulled out a standard-issue Dracon beam.

"Good," said the Doorkeeper. "You'll need it. Let's see, anything else — ah, yes. What's your host's name?"

"Teresa Sickles."

The Doorkeeper froze, and raised his eyes slowly toward hers. "_Saint_ Teresa Sickles?" he said.

Malcar blinked. "I believe my Writer has some intention of canonizing her at the end of the story, yes," she said.

The Doorkeeper crumpled up the questionnaire and stuffed it back in his pocket. "I'm sorry, Malcar Eight-Four-Five," he said.

"_What?_"

"This Bailiwick," said the Doorkeeper, "is one of the few places in the Triune Cosmos — along with the Kingdom of Ahriman, the Country beyond Moon's Rising, and certain parts of Massachusetts — where the essential nature of the universe does not apply, where bitter can be called sweet without fear of retribution, and where those who are the sworn enemies of contentment and happiness can nonetheless be happy and content. In short, it is a refuge from goodness — and any attempt to smuggle someone inside who is so blatantly good as to get herself declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church is therefore an attempt to undermine the very foundation of this establishment. I regret to have to say, Malcar Eight-Four-Five, that, so long as you infest Teresa Sickles, you are _persona non grata_ at the Villains' Bailiwick."

Malcar stared at him for a long moment, then slowly turned to go. As she reached the end of the walkway, however, she paused and turned back to the dark Tartar.

"You haven't seen the last of me," she said.

"Good," said the Doorkeeper.

It annoyed Malcar, who always liked to have the last word, that this comment left so little room for an answer. For a moment she vainly searched the two minds at her disposal for something at least vaguely suitable, then gave it up with an abrupt stamp of her foot and turned back into the night.

* * *

The Wings Hotel, located at 3π Recursion Avenue in downtown Subreality City, had originally been the headquarters of an exclusive club that drew its membership solely from those persons, real or imaginary, who had been the subjects of Oscar-winning performances. There was still a chance that it might, at some unspecified future date, be used for this purpose, but, as Qoheleth and Erineae had put the Academy-Club universe on the back burner for the time being, they had decided to convert the Hotel into a boarding house for any of their fictives who might happen to be passing through the Z-Universe.

The regular clientèle of the Wings Hotel, therefore, consisted principally of teenagers who could turn into jungle cats, pickpockets from Elizabethan England who could command monstrous serpents, and 14th-century Hogwarts headmistresses who had spent their youths battling vicious Dark wizards — and it was, in consequence, usually a rather lively place. However, when Malcar returned to the Wings after her interchange with the Doorkeeper of the Law, she found it virtually deserted except for a single elderly Irishman in papal robes, who was sitting at the _English Patient_ table and meditatively stirring a cup of coffee with a green, glowing swizzle stick that appeared to be coming directly out of his fourth finger.

As this was exactly the person Malcar wanted to talk to, she did not in the least mind the absence of third parties. She strode over to the table (one of Gauguin's better efforts, she thought; the bemonocled gentleman with the wrapped-up leg, while having no connection whatsoever with the actual movie, exactly fitted her own ideas of what "the English patient" ought to have looked like) and tapped the Irishman on the shoulder.

The swizzle stick faded out of existence as its creator stopped focusing on it and turned to the young Controller behind him. "Yes, what is it?"

"I need you to make me a new host body, Pope Lucius," said Malcar.

Pope Lucius IV, 285th successor of St. Peter and sixth Green Lantern of Earth, turned around in his chair and regarded her steadily. "What brought this on, dare I ask?"

"Well, apparently," said Malcar sardonically, "our beloved sister in Qoheleth, Miss Teresa Sickles, is just too darn holy to be allowed inside the Villains' Bailiwick, and therefore, so long as I'm infesting her, I can't get in, either. So I need a different host body, Q.E.D."

"A-ha," said Pope Lucius. "And why are you coming to me? Surely there's a pet store somewhere in this city where you can find a monkey to infest."

Malcar gave him a look. "I'm going into the Villains' Bailiwick, Pope Lucius," she said. "I need to command respect. How much respect do you think a monkey's going to get?"

Pope Lucius nodded. "Point taken."

He felt a certain unease about the request, all the same. In his fifty-some years as both a priest and a superhero, his two roles had frequently conflicted with each other, but one point on which they both agreed was that assisting evil to consort with evil was just begging for trouble. Still, that was in the DC Universe, where evil was unambiguously something to be done away with; Subreality, with its attitude of "a corrupted soul is just another character trait", had always made him uncertain of where he stood, and he had long ago decided to just go with the flow. Probably that would get him into trouble one day when he was called to account for it — but then that got him into the whole question of whether fictives had immortal souls, which was by no means a settled one, so...

"What sort of host body did you want?" he asked with a sigh. "Klingon? Djinn? Ominous green shape with no clearly defined boundaries?"

"How about an Andalite?" said Malcar.

Pope Lucius arched his eyebrows. "Getting a trifle presumptuous, aren't we?"

Malcar shrugged, and grinned. "If you have a ring that can make anything, why settle for second-best?"

"Mm," said Pope Lucius. "Can't argue with that, I suppose. All right, then, just pour yourself out of Teresa's ear onto the table here, and I'll take care of the rest."

Malcar glanced sharply at him. "What?"

"Think about it, Malcar," said Pope Lucius. "I need to form the body around your slug state. How am I supposed to do that if your slug state's locked inside Teresa's skull?"

"Oh," said Malcar. "Well, I suppose that's all right."

Pope Lucius sighed. "Honestly, Malcar," he said, "if your people were a little less sensitive about their natural limitations, your universe would be a much more peaceful place than it is."

"That's very edifying, coming from a seventy-seven-year-old man with arthritis who still considers himself a superhero because he gets to carry a gussied-up laser around," said Malcar.

"Matter-interactive verdant-energy emitter," Pope Lucius corrected her.

"Whatever."

"Well, there is a bit of a difference," said Pope Lucius. "For instance, a laser beam can't reach into a person's ear canal and forcibly extract the extra-terrestrial parasite squatting in her brain, whereas a MIVE beam can — and this MIVE beam..." (he held up his ring finger) "...just might, if you're not willing to come out peacefully."

Malcar sighed. "Okay, okay, keep your chasuble on. I'm emerging, all right?"

"Marvelous."

With a long-suffering expression on her borrowed face, Malcar bent Teresa's ear over the _English Patient_ table, detached her palps from her host's synapses, and slid out her ear canal into the darkness of un-hosted Yeerkhood.

The next moment, a jolt of energy ran through her body, and a completely new mode of consciousness burst into existence around her.

In one sense, it was just like infesting an organism: you reached out with your sensory organs, made contact with a controlling mechanism, and thereby plugged yourself into a whole new range of perceptions. On another level, though, everything was changed.

For one thing, she no longer had to locate and overpower one particular area of the body in order to control the rest. Every point in the centaur-shaped field of green, glowing energy seemed to be as satisfactory a point of command as any other; all she had to do, it seemed, was exist somewhere within the boundaries of the construct in order to have free rein over all its faculties.

And what faculties they were! It was no longer a question of receiving visual input solely from a pair of small, delicate organs that only faced in one direction at a time, but of being continuously and minutely aware of every beam of light that struck the luminous sculpture she now called her body. Not only could she see Teresa rubbing at her ear, or Pope Lucius smiling placidly, his right hand extended toward her; she could measure the angles at which the light from the ceiling lamps struck them, and calculate the wavelengths of the beams that reflected off of them. She wasn't sure one could call that "seeing", but if one couldn't, she decided, then so much the worse for seeing.

Interestingly, it never occurred to her to fear for her own sanity, even though, by all rights, the sheer sensory blitzkrieg of so many data from so many directions at once ought to have driven her into a padded cell right next to the Joker. Somehow, the energetic dynamo that she was currently plugged into was not only providing her with the ultimate in host bodies: it was also replenishing her own body more thoroughly and exuberantly than a week in the Yeerk pool could have done. She had never felt healthier, or stronger, or better equipped to handle total sensory barrages, than she did at that moment.

It occurred to her that she ought to test her new vehicle's motive capabilities — and no sooner had that thought crossed her mind than she found herself mounting onto her hind legs (somehow, she already thought of Pope Lucius's construct as a extension of herself, though it was nothing like any extension her self had ever had before) and leaping the full length of the Wings Hotel's main dining hall — a feat that she was absolutely certain no natural Andalite had ever equaled in the race's twenty-thousand-year history.

_Stupid,_ she chid herself. _This isn't an Andalite at all; it's a big packet of Oan ring energy, just like those bubbles that normal Green Lanterns use to get around in. _(She specified "normal" members of the Corps because she knew that Pope Lucius preferred to use a winged green mule as his signature Green-Lantern mode of transportation.) _Why, I'll bet you could fly with this thing, if you..._

The next instant, she felt a sudden jarring sensation go through both of her bodies. After a moment's confusion, she realized that her MIVE host body, in obedience to her barely-formed command, had shot itself upwards until it rammed into the ceiling. She also noticed, in passing, that the zone of energy corresponding to her tail blade had neatly sliced a branch off a nearby chandelier, which had plummeted to the ground and nearly nailed Teresa on the head, inspiring that noted evangelist to scurry to the safety of her bed in Suite 54.

_Hmm, _she thought. _I begin to see why Green Lanterns take all that training to refine their wills._

It was the sort of comment that, if she had still been infesting Teresa, she might have made out loud, but since she had no idea how to access the Oan Andalite's speech faculties (or, indeed, whether it had any), she kept it to herself. Or so she thought, until she heard a voice in her mind respond, _Well, good for you. There are some people — and here I am thinking specifically of Ti Chiu Hsien, the Ninth Immortal — who go their whole lives without figuring that out._

Malcar did a double take. _Pope Lucius? _she thought. _Can you hear me?_

_Not hear, exactly, _Pope Lucius responded. _I believe what's happening is that the MIVE beam surrounding you is taking your thoughts, converting them into electric impulses of some kind, and transmitting them to my ring, which in turn converts them back into thoughts and sends them to my brain. I then think a response to you, and the process occurs in reverse._

_Oh,_ thought Malcar, making a mental note not to wish too hard for the downfall of the Christian faith while she was controlling the Andalite simulacrum. _So this thing can not only fly and slice off chandelier pieces, but also broadcast radio waves. Are there any other features I should know about?_

_A few, perhaps,_ said Pope Lucius. _For instance, it may interest you to know that I incorporated a perpetual Kandrona flow into the packet's wavelengths, so you won't have to visit the pool so long as you remained enwrapped in it._

_Oh, that's what the energy boost I'm feeling is._

_Exactly, _said Pope Lucius. _Also, of course, since it is a MIVE packet, you can change its shape at any time, although, since it's no longer connected to the battery, you can't increase or decrease its size. And you should probably also know that the construct is set to discorporate as soon as you are no longer directly controlling it. _He paused, then added, _I learn from my mistakes._

Malcar had no idea what that meant, and wasn't really all that curious. She was, however, slightly disappointed. _So the plan isn_'_t for me to stay in this host permanently?_

_No,_ said Pope Lucius. _You'll be returning to Teresa as soon as your little sojourn in the Pit is over. I can construct other hosts for you should you ever want to go back, but it'll be on a strictly rental basis; you won't have the option to buy._

_Well, that doesn't seem quite fair to Teresa,_ said Malcar, who in fact couldn't have cared less about being fair to Teresa, but who thought a former member of the Justice League of America might not have been able to resist rescuing a damsel in distress.

Unfortunately for her, Pope Lucius was less sentimental than most superheroes. _It may not be, at that, _he said, _but it's a long sight better than having her mortal enemy gallivanting about Subreality permanently encased in the most powerful weapon in the universe__._

_Ah,_said Malcar, _but would she feel that way?_

_Yes,_ said Pope Lucius.

And the annoying thing was that Malcar knew he was right. Teresa Sickles would a hundred times sooner let herself be enslaved than allow evil to come to others; it was one of the most infuriating things about the girl. Nevertheless, Malcar rallied: _Well,_she said, _shouldn't she decide that for herself?_

_She did, _said Pope Lucius. _I discussed it with her while you were prancing about the dining room._

_I didn't hear her._

_That's because you're deaf._

_There's no need to get snippy, Pope Lucius, _said Malcar with a touch of annoyance.

_I'm not getting snippy,_ said Pope Lucius. _Did you expect to be able to hear in that getup?_

Malcar frowned. _Well — yes, actually, _she said. _I mean, it does have ears..._

_And how do they work?_

_I... thought you knew._

_I'm no more an anatomist than you are, Malcar,_ said Pope Lucius. _I have no idea how to make auditory receptors — and so the Andalites that come out of my ring don't have auditory receptors. It's as simple as that._

_How come I can see so well, then?_ said Malcar. _Do you know how eyes work?_

_I ought to, given all the intelligent-design arguments I've read over the years,_ said Pope Lucius, _but the truth is I haven't an inkling. No, the reason you can see is because your host body is essentially an electromagnetic phenomenon, and eyes that are sunlike can see the sun._

_Huh?_

_An old gag of Plotinus's. What I mean is, sight comes from the perception of light, and your vehicle's made of light, so of course it can perceive it — the same way it could perceive X rays if you happened to wander into Subreality General Hospital while you were wearing it. Sound, however, comes from air vibrations, which are not electromagnetic phenomena, so the construct has no particular faculties for detecting it. Nor, for that matter, has it any faculties for smell, taste, or touch, although it should be able to..._

_Now hold on just a minute here,_ said Malcar. _If I can't perceive sound, and I can't speak except by pulsing radio waves, how in the Triune Cosmos do you expect me to explain my new position to the Doorkeeper of the Law?_

Pope Lucius frowned; evidently the question hadn't occurred to him. _Well, _he suggested, _you could always will certain extraneous parts of the construct to form letters..._

_And if he wanted to speak to me?_

_Yes, that is the bottleneck, isn't it?_ Pope Lucius agreed. _You don't happen to read lips, do you?_

_No._

_Or know elementary sign language?_

Malcar shook her head, then remembered that she was on the ceiling, and Pope Lucius was on the floor, and the latter's vision was not what it once was. _No again, _she pulsed.

Pope Lucius pondered for a moment, then clapped his hands. _Wait right here, _he said, and scampered out of the dining hall (insofar as an arthritic seventy-seven-year-old in gold-embroidered robes can scamper, that is). He was gone for several minutes, and Malcar decided to devote the available time to perfecting her skill at directing her new body.

A human, of course, would have required much more than several minutes to become even remotely skillful at directing a power ring's energy beam, but Yeerks are a strong-willed race, and Malcar Six-One-Six was a particularly strong-willed Yeerk. Not only did she teach herself how to steer the MIVE Andalite down to the floor, but she also mastered the basics of shifting its shape, and she was engaged in twisting her tail blade into forms that would have been highly insulting to an actual Andalite when Pope Lucius reentered the room.

Another Green Lantern, upon finding a construct of his own imagination contorting itself into something that R. Crumb might have come up with while he was feeling unusually perverted, might possibly have reacted somewhat violently. Pope Lucius, however, having been for most of his life a walking symbol of an institution whise mere existence seemed to unhinge otherwise sound and mature minds, had reached the point where not even the coarsest juvenilia could dismay him, and his response, accordingly, was simply to arch his eyebrows and pulse, _I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?_

It was, however, enough to cause Malcar to snap her body back into its original form and glance up at the Irish pontiff, flustered at having allowed a human to observe her private pleasures. _Um, no, not really, _she said. _I was just, uh, that is..._

_Quite,_ said Pope Lucius with a nod. _Well, anyway, here's the solution to your communications problem._

He tossed two small, rectangular objects — one black, the other apple red — toward the MIVE-construct-Controller. Malcar extended an arm, caught both handily, and stared at them.

_Cell phones?_ she pulsed quizzically.

Pope Lucius nodded. _Abby and Josh left them in the lobby a few weeks ago, _he said. _Each one has a text-messaging feature, so if you give the black one to the Doorkeeper and keep the red one for yourself, you'll be able to chat with each other to your hearts' contents._

Malcar thought about that.

_Why do I have to keep the red one?_ she said.

_It brings out your eyes,_ said Pope Lucius.

The man had an answer for everything. Under ordinary circumstances, this might have annoyed Malcar, but at the moment she was too elated at her upcoming opportunity of sticking it to the Doorkeeper of the Law to waste even a modicum of energy resenting smart-aleck popes.

_Well, okay then,_ she said. _Tell Teresa good-bye for me, and if Lord Qoheleth or Lady Erineae come looking for me, tell them I'm taking a siesta at the choicest vacation spot outside of the Country beyond Moon's Rising._

_Will do, _said Pope Lucius. _And if you happen to see Star Sapphire there, tell her that just because the Roman Church has imposed celibacy on her favorite superhero, that's no reason to try and blow up the Provisional Cathedral in Dublin._

_She did that?_

_No, but I know she's thinking about it._

_Ah,_ said Malcar. _I'll let her know, then._

_Gratias._

_No problem._

And, with a whoosh, Malcar sailed out of the Wings Hotel and galloped down the shifting Subreal streets, blissfully unaware of the unpleasant surprise that awaited her at the end of her journey.

* * *

**What do you mean, my host body is a sacramental?**

The Doorkeeper of the Law shrugged and tapped a few buttons on the black cell phone. **I'm sorry, Malcar 845,** appeared his words on Malcar's viewscreen, **but facts are facts. I have taken the liberty of looking up Pope Lucius IV's backstory, and it seems to be a matter of record that the then Reverend Michael O'Brien, shortly after taking on John Stewart's power ring, had it blessed by the Archbishop of Armagh so that anything he created with it would have the status of a sacramental object. As there is no record of his ever changing his ring, we must assume that your current host body was formed from the same ring as received Cardinal Brady's blessing on that day.**

Malcar fumed silently, thinking that she ought to have realized this. How many times had she seen Pope Lucius carrying the Sacrament to Shantytown in a ring-energy monstrance? Anybody who had Controlled a Catholic as punctilious as Teresa for as long as she had ought to have known that you only put the Body of Christ in sanctified vessels — which, if she had ever bothered to notice it, would have obviously implied that Pope Lucius's ring's emissions were, in fact, sanctified.

**You will understand, therefore, **the Doorkeeper's message continued, **that your new host body is every bit as unacceptable in the Bailiwick as your old one. A large portion of our clientèle consists of demons, vampires, and other creatures of darkness, for whom merely looking at a blessed object is highly uncomfortable, and contact with one often fatal. We simply cannot permit that kind of safety hazard to our customers.**

Malcar glowered. **You know what I think? **she typed furiously. **I think you're deliberately toying with me, the way you did with that poor sap in your story. Or else all the sinister prelates in the Bailiwick have formed an alliance against me, and they've bribed you not to let me in.**

**Nothing of the kind, Malcar 845, **the Doorkeeper messaged, unruffled. **I would be glad to let you into the Bailiwick, if you would only find yourself an acceptable host body.**

**An evil one, you mean?**

The Doorkeeper shrugged. **A merely venal one would do fine,** he typed, **but admittedly an actively evil one would be even better. A mass murderer, for instance, such as Esplin 9466 the Elder infests, would do admirably.**

It was as she read these words that a delightful idea came into Malcar's head. **Or a destroyer of souls?** she messaged. **Someone who exists solely to squeeze the hope out of a human heart, and pester innocent civilians in his spare time?**

The Doorkeeper hesitated. **I suppose so, yes,** came his message after a few moments.

**Well, then, **Malcar typed, with a smile in her luminous eyes, **in that case, the solution is obvious, isn't it?**

And before the Doorkeeper could read that message — possibly before he even received it — Malcar flung aside the red cell phone (which struck the pavement with such force that it shattered into a thousand shards, leaving a crater that still remains to this day) and lunged at him with the speed of the light her body was.

Between one heartbeat and another, she had bound the Doorkeeper helplessly in her body, which she had re-formed into something less like an Andalite than like an enormous emerald tree boa, wrapping the Bailiwick bouncer in coils made not of flesh but of pure force, coils that no power of mortal man could dream of breaking. The Doorkeeper attempted to cry out, but she extruded a tentacle and bound it about his mouth, and then — lazily, so as to cause the Doorkeeper the maximum possible amount of torment — she extended her head upward and pressed the side of it against his ear.

She had half-emerged from the energic cocoon when a thought struck her. _Perpetual Kandrona flow, _Pope Lucius had said. If she could peel off a fragment of MIVE from the rest of her host and take it into the Doorkeeper's head with her, she wouldn't need to visit Biss Niar, the Subreal Yeerk pool, in three days. She could remain curled up inside the Doorkeeper's head, looming in front of the Bailiwick, until Teresa's God started ripping seals off his scroll, and no one would be the wiser.

No sooner had she thought the scheme than it was done. Malcar positively clicked with glee as some 146 joules of verdant energy — enough to surround her entire natural body to a depth of about twenty millimeters — detached itself from the surrounding mass and followed her down through the Doorkeeper's ear canal, into the very depths of his brain.

This meant, of course, that she was receiving visual data as she slithered through the Doorkeeper's skull, but as these data consisted principally of complete darkness, she didn't think much about it — at least not until she reached the central nervous system and made the Doorkeeper's perceptions her own, at which point she had what may have been the most bizarre experience in the history of Yeerk infestation. Essentially, once she had plugged herself into the Doorkeeper's senses, she found that she was seeing by two means at once: that even as her borrowed eyes beheld the Bailiwick, the street, and everything else in the vicinity (though not the MIVE Andalite; that, true to Pope Lucius's word, had dissipated when she had entered the Doorkeeper's brain), the packet of Oan energy surrounding her real body was ensuring her continued awareness of the darkness inside the Bailiwick's bouncer.

It was a surreal experience, but Malcar didn't spend too much time pondering it; there was too much else to distract her attention. She hadn't realized, while she had been floating in Pope Lucius's luminous vortex, how starved she had been for some sense other than sight. For some moments she stood stock-still, letting auditory, tactile, and olfactory sensations — the feeling of the Doorkeeper's boots against his toes, the smell of fresh gagh from the inside of the Bailiwick, the sound of explosions echoing from the Surreality Café — wash over her like a tide, in simple ecstasy.

This interlude, however, was rudely interrupted as the Doorkeeper's mind, taking advantage of its conqueror's temporary distraction, attempted to re-seize control of its body. For a brief moment, Malcar felt the Doorkeeper's voluntary functions slipping from her grasp, and her own consciousness being shoved aside by the mind of a feverish Czechoslovakian nightmare.

A lesser Yeerk might have panicked, but Malcar Eight-Four-Five was simply annoyed. With the firmness of purpose that had served her so well in controlling the MIVE Andalite, she reasserted her dominance, thrust the Doorkeeper's consciousness back into the inner darkness where it belonged, and turned on a few of his pain centers to prevent him from trying that trick again.

Malcar smiled to herself as she "heard" the Doorkeeper bellowing in frustrated rage, flinging curses at her in a language that sounded vaguely like Turkish. She had forgotten how much she missed that, too.

"Doorkeeper?" came a hoarse voice from the Bailiwick door, and Malcar jerked her new head around to see a tall pirate poking out his head. Hastily, she checked the Doorkeeper's memories, and learned that this was Captain Edward Grim, the notorious brigand who tended bar for the Villains' Bailiwick.

"Everything all right out here, D?" said Grim. "Ghastly heard something that he thought sounded like a struggle, and I just thought I'd be checking..."

"Nothing to worry about," said Malcar in the Doorkeeper's voice. "Just a rogue Green Lantern construct trying to bust its way in here."

Grim nodded sagely; evidently this was a fairly common occurrence. "You took care of it in the usual way, I presume?" he said.

"We won't be seeing it again, Captain," said Malcar. "You can rely on that."

"Excellent," said Grim. "Keep up the good work." And with a swish of his tatterdemalion great-coat, he vanished back into the darkness of the Bailiwick.

"Thank you, sir," murmured Malcar with a smile. "I believe I will."

* * *

And thus it was that, some days later, a letter was delivered to Suite 54 of the Wings Hotel that read as follows:

_Dear Teresa: _

_I'm afraid you won't be seeing me again for some time, as I've found myself a job at that place you're not allowed into. Terribly sad, of course, but the best of friends must part, now mustn't they?_

_Take care of yourself, and don't cause too much trouble for our mutual Writer. I'll try to remember to send you a card on your birthday, but I can't promise anything; you know how hard it is to keep track of time in this universe. Still, if it hadn't been for you, I never would have gotten this position, so I'll do my best._

_Wishing you all the best, I remain,_

_Your affectionate former Controller,_

_Malcar Eight-Four-Five_

**The End**  
(or is it?)

* * *

Disclaimer: Yeerks, Taxxons, Andalites, Kandrona, and Yeerk pools belong to K. A. Applegate; the Doorkeeper of the Law appears in Franz Kafka's short story "Before the Law"; the Country beyond Moon's Rising originated with Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany; the Oscar is (as they say) a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; the Green Lantern Corps, Oan power rings, and Star Sapphire all sprang from the fertile imaginations of John Broome and Gil Kane; Klingons are entirely the fault of Mr. Gene Coon; John Stewart is the creation of Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams; I don't know who came up with gagh; the Surreality Café is Jess Willey's private playground; and Captain Grim first appeared in Chameleon's story "I Don't Think We're in Riverdale Anymore, Archie", although I have taken the liberty of giving him a name. I think that covers everything.


	12. Therefore…

**Introduction to "Therefore...": **Just a quick drabble on the same basic theme as "Rite of Passage", with a little zinger to the American Catholic hierarchy thrown in.

This story was posted on the SCML on 4 May, 2008, and makes reference to no particular fandom.

* * *

"Where do you think you're going?" said the Bouncer, positioning himself between the door and the oncoming Writer.

"Into the Café," Qoheleth replied. "Today's Thursday."

"No, it's not," said the Bouncer. "It's Sunday."

"How can it be Sunday?" said Qoheleth. "I've just come from an Ascension Thursday Mass."

The Bouncer blinked. "Really?"

"Really."

"Oh." Frowning, the Bouncer moved away from the door to examine the Café calendar, and Qoheleth slipped inside.

Then, too late, the Bouncer remembered. "Hey, wait a minute!" he shouted. "What state do you live in?"

"Perpetual wonder," came Qoheleth's voice as he vanished into the crowd.

* * *

Disclaimer: The usual.


	13. The Witness

**Introduction to "The Witness": **It is said that, in the carefree days of her youth in ancient Greece, the Muse Queen Calliope bore an unwanted son, whom she proceeded to leave exposed on a mountain. Somehow, the child managed to survive, and (not unsurprisingly) to develop a smoldering resentment of his mother in particular, and Muses in general. As a result, the Subreal world gained perhaps its most sinister stock figure: Daemon Hunter, legendary Muse assassin.

Over the course of the past few millennia, this semi-divine outlaw has liquidated hundreds of his mother's subjects, either directly or indirectly, but always managing to stay one step ahead of the law. Indeed, the one time, to my knowledge, that he ever appeared in a court of law was in the following story - and in that instance, as you will see, he was not the defendant but a witness for the prosecution.

This story appeared on the SCML on 26 July, 2008, and makes reference to no particular fandom.

* * *

Judge Nicholas C. Gunnell reviewed the documents before him with an expression of distaste.

"Miss Dorsey," he said, "your client is charged with the voluntary manslaughter of Robert Lionel Bermudez. How does she plead?"

"Not guilty, Your Honor," said Margaret K. Dorsey.

"You may step down."

Margaret resumed her seat and glanced sidewise at her client, a curious feeling of uncertainty rising within her. One of the things she had noticed about Linda McDaniel, in the weeks of interviews that had preceded this case, was that she was far from expert at concealing her emotions. You couldn't begin to guess what she might have to hide, but if she was nervous or insecure, you could always tell. At this moment, Linda McDaniel was decidedly insecure.

Why, though? She had to be innocent – any sane person could see that. There was no reason for believing that Robert Bermudez's death was anything other than suicide attendant upon mental illness; and the suggestion that this woman who lived a thousand miles away, who had never corresponded with the deceased, who hadn't even recognized his _name_, was somehow guilty of shedding his blood – well, it was frankly laughable. If David Galedary hadn't had such influence with Judge Gunnell, the case would never have even come to trial.

David Galedary. Margaret glanced over at him, coolly gathering his papers and approaching the bench, and felt her blood begin to boil, the way it always did when she thought about the Newcomb County Prosecutor. David Galedary, the show-horse of Newcomb County; David Galedary, who seemed to take a perverse delight in getting randomly selected citizens imprisoned for crimes no-one had ever heard of; David Galedary, sworn enemy of everything that Margaret Dorsey stood for.

"Your Honor," said this travesty of a human being, "for my first witness, I wish to call Mrs. Sheila Marilyn Bermudez."

_Mrs. Cesar Vicente Bermudez, you idiot,_ Margaret thought. _Honestly, you're educated enough to know the forms of address; why don't you ever employ them? Do you think that people won't believe your precious son-of-a-shopkeeper routine unless you talk like a Visigoth, or do you just enjoy tormenting me?_

She said none of this aloud, of course, and Sheila Marilyn Bermudez, wife of Cesar Vicente Bermudez, was sworn in without further ado.

"Mrs. Bermudez," Galedary began, "you are, I believe, the mother of the deceased?"

"I am," said Mrs. Bermudez.

Galedary nodded. "I understand that your son was placed in a mental institution around the first week of last February," he said. "May I ask when he first started exhibiting signs of mental instability?"

Mrs. Bermudez swallowed. "According to his college roommate, Jeff McGoey," she said, "he starting acting definitely 'weird' around the twelfth of January. I couldn't say with as much certainty, since I wasn't in constant contact with him, but his e-mails home did begin to get rather odd around that time."

Galedary nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Bermudez," he said. "Now, there's just one other question I want to ask you. It might seem a little strange to you, but…"

Mrs. Bermudez nodded. "Yes, Mr. Galedary, go ahead," she said.

"Thank you, Mrs. Bermudez," said Galedary. "Let me ask you, then, if by any chance you remember your son's E-mail address?"

Mrs. Bermudez blinked twice or thrice, then said slowly, "Well, yes, as a matter of fact, it was ''."

"Are you certain of that, ma'am?" said Galedary.

Mrs. Bermudez smiled slightly. "When your son sends you his first e-mail from college, and the return address reads 'The Great Wazuti', you aren't likely to forget it," she said. "Yes, Mr. Galedary, I'm certain."

Galedary bowed. "Thank you, Mrs. Bermudez," he said. "No further questions, Your Honor."

Judge Gunnell turned to Margaret's side of the courtroom. "Miss Dorsey," he said, "do you wish to cross-examine the witness?"

Margaret hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. "No, Your Honor, I have no questions for Mrs. Bermudez." She paused, and turned to her opponent. "I might have a few questions for Mr. Galedary, however."

Judge Gunnell chose to ignore this. "You may step down, Mrs. Bermudez," he said.

Mrs. Bermudez stood up with an air of slight puzzlement, brushed off her skirt, and walked back to her seat. Galedary dug into his pocket, pulled out a folded scrap of paper, and turned to address the bench.

"Your Honor," he said, "before I continue, I would like to present this as Exhibit A. The counsel for the defense presented me with this three weeks ago, identifying it as a transcript of the defendant's E-mail address. The jury will kindly note," he added, handing the scrap to bailiff Allan Hutchison, who held it in the air, "that the address reads ''. I can attest that I have used this same address to successfully communicate with the defendant on at least two separate occasions."

Margaret had had enough. "Objection, Your Honor," she said, rising to her feet. "Unless Mr. Galedary believes this court to be an online dating service, he must realize the utter irrelevance of his evidence to this case."

There was an audible snort from the jury box, and Margaret felt a trifle easier in mind. Galedary, however, remained calm. "On the contrary, Your Honor," he said, "it is extremely relevant, as I believe my next witness will demonstrate. If I may?"

Judge Gunnell nodded. "Go ahead, Mr. Galedary."

Galedary turned toward the assembly, his face bearing as close a facsimile of a grin as it ever had, and said, "I call Mr. Daemon Hunter to the stand."

* * *

The word "demon" had rarely been uttered in the Newcomb County Courthouse in the last seventy-five years, and several people in the courtroom began whispering instinctively over what they felt to be a severe breach of good taste on Mr. Galedary's part, but their murmurings were quelled when the witness rose to take the stand. Margaret wasn't quite sure what someone named Daemon Hunter ought to look like, but the man who stood before her fit the description as well as any.

His skin was astoundingly pale, something halfway between a Swede and a corpse, but it seemed even paler than it was, since it was the only thing about him that wasn't jet black. His hair, his clothes, his shoes – even his eyes were obscured by a pair of jet-black spectacles.

That, in itself, wasn't so alarming. Margaret had met dozens of people who affected the Close-Relative-of-Death look, and most of them were completely harmless. What frightened her was the way this Daemon Hunter carried himself. The slightly sneering lips, the steady, measured walk, the way his eyes seemed to scan the courtroom behind his glasses: everything about him bespoke a complete coldness of spirit. Certainly, he was more of a criminal than Linda McDaniel – if such categories applied to him at all; Margaret found herself thinking of killer cyborgs, of vengeful ghosts, of bogeymen and incubi and things that went bump in the night.

"Objection, Your Honor," she said.

Judge Gunnell turned to her. "Yes, Miss Dorsey?"

And Margaret drew a blank. In truth, she hadn't had any coherent objections at all – only an undefined feeling that someone like this ought never to see the inside of any court's witness stand.

Frantically, she grasped at the nearest technicality. "Your Honor," she said, "by the state of Texas's legal procedure, Mr. Galedary is required to present the defense with all relevant information about any witness he intends to call."

Judge Gunnell frowned. "And he did not do so with reference to Mr. Hunter?"

Margaret hesitated. "I was informed that a Mr. D. A. Hunter would figure as a witness in the prosecution's case," she said, "but I was not given any means of contacting him."

"On the contrary, Your Honor," said Galedary. "The prosecution presented Counsel with no fewer than three intermediaries, through whom she could obtain any information she wished from Mr. Hunter."

"Your Honor," Margaret protested, "identifying intermediaries is scarcely the traditional means of…"

"Mr. Hunter," said Galedary, "is not a traditional witness. The usual means of contact would have been ineffectual – for Miss Dorsey, at least." (There was the faintest trace of a smirk on his lips as he said this, and Margaret knew she had just been insulted somehow.)

"Mr. Galedary," said Judge Gunnell, "in what way would the usual means of contact have failed?"

"That is not a question I can answer in one sentence, Your Honor," said Galedary. "I believe, however, that Mr. Hunter's testimony will clarify this – as well as many other matters."

Judge Gunnell sighed. "Objection overruled," he said. "Your witness, Mr. Galedary."

The man Hunter stepped into the witness box, and an uncharacteristically intimidated Hutchison stepped forward to administer the oath. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" he mumbled.

"I do," said Hunter.

And, for some strange reason, Margaret believed him. She wasn't sure why, since it was clear from his tone that he had no great respect for the forms of law, but something about his expression told her that, once this man had given his word, the Rockies might tumble and Gibraltar might crumble, but that word would not be broken. Or maybe she had just read too many Fu Manchu novels.

She didn't have time to weigh the point; Galedary was already stepping forward. "Please state your full name for the record," he said.

"Daemon Anmchara Hunter," said the witness. "That's A-N-M-C-H-A-R-A," he added, noting the slight panic on the court clerk's face. "And 'Daemon' is spelled with an AE."

"And your current residence?" said Galedary.

"I don't have a fixed street address," said Hunter, "but I spend most of my time in Subreality City."

Galedary smiled slightly. "Will you please tell the court where that is?" he said.

Hunter hesitated for a moment. "Well, if the universe we're in now is Reality," he said, "and the universe of fictional characters – Harry Potter, Matt Ishida, and so forth – is Unreality, then Subreality can be defined as a universe distinct from both of those universes, yet accessible from either one."

"So Subreality is a place where real people can interact with fictional characters," said Galedary. "Is that correct?"

"Perfectly correct," said Hunter.

A babel of voices broke out in the courtroom, and Margaret leapt to her feet. "Objection, Your Honor!" she shouted.

"Overruled," said Judge Gunnell.

"But, Your Honor…"

"Miss Dorsey, I am aware of, and sympathetic to, your concern," said Judge Gunnell, "but _prima facie_ implausibility is not in itself sufficient grounds to dismiss a testimony. Rest assured that if Mr. Hunter is perjuring himself in my court, the consequences for him will be as severe as the laws of this state permit." He turned to the D.A. "With that in view, Mr. Galedary, please continue."

Galedary nodded, and turned back to his witness. "You imply that human beings are capable of entering this Subreal universe," he said. "Are you aware of any humans who have done so?"

Hunter snorted. "I'm aware of a whole swarm of humans who have done so."

"Why is it, then," said Galedary, "that Reality at large remains unaware of Subreality's existence?"

"Because," said Hunter, "nearly all of those humans are Writers –" (he pronounced the word as though it tasted bad) "– and, in this universe, nobody believes writers. The only ones you people believe are scientists, and if a scientist wound up in Subreality, he wouldn't know what to do with himself. He'd probably wind up huddled in a corner at the Café, staring shell-shocked at the waitress's bust-line – and God help him if the bunny slippers got hungry."

"Bunny slippers?" interrupted Judge Gunnell. "What bunny slippers?"

"Never mind," said Hunter irritably. "The point is, there are good reasons why Subreality doesn't get mentioned in scientific journals."

Galedary nodded. "So," he said, "Writers visit Subreality, and fictional characters visit Subreality. Are there any other kinds of people who do so?"

Hunter smiled, a sour sort of smile. "Oh, yeah."

"And what sort would that be?" said Galedary.

"You ever hear of Muses?"

If the word _Writers_ had seemed to curdle in Hunter's mouth, it was nothing to the way he looked when he said _Muses_. There was a positive scowl on his face now, the look of a man who has an old score to settle and hasn't quite settled it yet. Just so must Hatfield have looked when he spoke the name of McCoy.

Either Galedary didn't notice this, or he chose to ignore it. "I am familiar with a group of nine minor goddesses who went by that name," he said. "Are you referring to them?"

"Kind of," said Hunter. "They weren't really goddesses, actually – and I wouldn't advise you to call them _minor_ to their faces – but there were nine of them, and they were definitely Muses." The scowl again.

"They weren't the only ones, though," he continued. "See, a Muse is basically just the entity that causes a human to create something. It can be a story, a cabinet, or a new and better tomorrow, but if you've ever wanted to make anything, it's because your Muse was doing her job."

"That would seem to cover just about everybody," Galedary said mildly.

"It does cover everybody," said Hunter. "Everybody in the world has a Muse. Some obnoxious persons even have two or three Muses. Why, I know of one young woman – may vultures feast upon her bowels – who has _eleven_ Muses."

"You sound as though you didn't approve," said Galedary.

"I don't approve of Muses on principle," said Hunter; and he looked as though he meant it.

"That is," he amended, "I don't so much mind _technical_ Muses – you know, the kind who Inspire craftsmen and engineers and so forth – since they at least have the decency to just do their jobs and not infest the everyday world. But _artistic _Muses – Muses who 'ennoble the world', as opposed to doing anything useful; Muses who can't get over how picturesque they are, and spend all their waking moments plotting new ways to force themselves on unwitting bystanders – _those_ Muses I abhor with all my being."

A slow, sinister smile spread across his face. "_Those_ Muses I kill."

Margaret gasped involuntarily, along with half the courtroom. She couldn't possibly have heard correctly. The prosecution's star witness couldn't have just confessed, under oath, to serial first-degree murder. Leaving aside the question of his moral character, which she had had her doubts about from the beginning, he was clearly an intelligent man; he had to realize that the state of Texas permitted this sort of thing to be used as evidence, and that he had just signed his own death warrant.

Or – now that she thought about it – had he? Could crimes committed in Subreality be prosecuted by a Real court? She wasn't sure. It wasn't the sort of question the Supreme Court dealt with on a regular basis…

_The Supreme Court has never dealt with it, Peggy, you little ninny,_ said a voice in her head. _The question doesn't exist. _Subreality _doesn't exist. It's a figment of David Galedary's imagination, and he and this Hunter guy are using it to make a mockery out of American jurisprudence, and you're letting yourself get sucked into it. Get a grip on yourself, girl._

She let her features settle back into an expression of cool disapproval, and her gaze returned to Galedary, who appeared to be deliberately ignoring the stir his witness had caused with his statement. His next question consisted of a single word: "Professionally?"

"When I can," said Hunter, with that same chilling smile.

"And what happens to a Writer whose Muse is killed?" said Galedary.

"Well, that depends," said Hunter. "That loathsome creature with the eleven Muses probably wouldn't even noticed if I bumped off a few of them; they're not close enough to the essence of her personality to do any significant damage. On the other hand, with someone like XMAN0123, whose Muses have both been explicitly defined as incarnate aspects of his mind, he'd probably wind up gibbering in a mental institution."

"I see," said Galedary. "Thank you, Mr. Hunter. Now, there's just one more thing. Could you please tell the court what you were doing on the evening of January 4, 2008?"

"No," said Hunter.

For the first time, Galedary seemed taken aback. "I beg your pardon?" he said.

"No, I couldn't tell the court what I was doing on the evening of January 4, 2008," said Hunter. "I was in Subreality that evening, just like I am most evenings, and Subreality doesn't have time in the same way that this universe does, so it wasn't really 'that evening' at all."

"Ah." Galedary frowned. "I'll rephrase the question, then. Could you please tell the court what you were doing at the point in the Subreal continuum corresponding to the evening of January 4, 2008?"

"Gladly," said Hunter. "I was at the Subreality Café. That's a bar right near the center of Subreality City; it's the standard meeting place for travelers in Subreality."

"And what were you doing there?" said Galedary.

"Accepting a contract," said Hunter. "It seems there was this Writer who was getting a little too much of an online following, and my client – she was one of the Writers he was stealing readers from – wanted me to take out his Muse so he would be forced to go on sabbatical for a while. Her money was good, and I don't need a lot of persuading to take a job like that, so…" He made a gunshot gesture with his hand that finished his sentence eloquently.

"And what was this Writer's name?" said Galedary.

"Well, I couldn't tell you his real name," said Hunter. "Very few Writers use real names in Subreality; they generally go by their online or literary aliases. In this guy's case, that would be 'The Great Wazuti'."

Judge Gunnell tapped his gavel to silence the low murmur that arose at these words.

"And the other Writer, the one who hired you?" said Galedary. "What name did she go by?"

"She called herself 'Sparkly Lemon'," Hunter replied.

A second murmur arose, and once again Judge Gunnell tapped it down.

"I see," said Galedary. "And would you be able to recognize this Sparkly Lemon if you saw her again?"

"In Subreality, absolutely," said Hunter. "It'd be a little trickier in Reality, since Writers generally tweak their appearances somewhat when they Write themselves into the Z-Universe – avatars, they call them – but I like to think I could still identify the basic features."

"Ah," said Galedary. "Well, allowing for the self-flattery you describe, is there anyone in this courtroom whom you would be willing to identify as your client?"

"Allowing for the self-flattery I describe," said Hunter with a small smile, "I'd say she's sitting right there." And he pointed a long, pale finger directly at Linda McDaniel.

This time, a little more than a tap was required from Judge Gunnell's gavel. What bothered Margaret, though, wasn't the reaction from the courtroom, but the reaction from her client. The look in Linda McDaniel's eyes was the look of Achan the son of Zabdi before Joshua, and the sight of it convinced Margaret in spite of herself: however Galedary had done it, he had found the murderer of Robert Bermudez.

Indeed, she might have resigned the case then and there, if she hadn't been certain that Galedary's method of discovering McDaniel's guilt had been just as illegal as the murder itself. After all, if it wasn't, why was he bothering to conceal them under this preposterous story of a universe between fiction and reality and a professional killer of Muses?

"Don't worry, Linda," she whispered, putting her hand on her client's. "We'll get out of this thing yet."

Linda didn't respond, but continued staring, frozen, into Hunter's eyes. Galedary noticed her reaction, and a quite visible smirk spread across his face. "One more question, Mr. Hunter," he said. "Based on your experience with various kinds of Muses, would you say Mr. Wazuti's was the sort who could safely be killed without harming the Writer?"

"Absolutely not," said Hunter. "If that little twerp wasn't a manifestation of some deep-seated Freudian something-or-other, then I'm an Archetype. My killing her should certainly have driven Writer-Boy loco inside of a month, and I'd be surprised if he didn't start acting funny within five or six days of the hit."

"That's your professional opinion?" said Galedary.

"It is."

"Thank you, Mr. Hunter," said Galedary. He turned away from the witness box with a small, self-satisfied smile, and fixed his eye on the defense table. "Your witness, Miss Dorsey."

* * *

Margaret rose and strode over to the witness box, doing her best to radiate an aura of cool disdain for all the pseudo-legal moonshine that Galedary had been spinning for the last eight minutes. This was not an attitude that came naturally to her, and the awestruck silence of the courtroom didn't help in the least, but she managed a passable approximation.

"Mr. Hunter," she said, "the only question I have to ask you is, just what kind of idiots do you think our jury is made of?"

"Objection, Your Honor," said Galedary laconically.

"I'll rephrase the question," said Margaret, with what she hoped was equal nonchalance. "In the course of your testimony, you have asked us to believe, first, that the created worlds of fantasy writers have a real and objective existence; second, that there is a universe where people from these worlds can interact with real people; third, that aspects of the human mind can be transmuted into separate persons; fourth, that it is your regular practice to go about killing these persons. Only if all these things are granted does your testimony implicating my client even begin to hold water. Now, can you produce even a shred of evidence supporting any of these claims?"

Hunter did not answer immediately. Instead, he stared at Margaret for a few minutes, with an expression simultaneously bemused and speculative. He held this expression just long enough for what little confidence Margaret had to seep out of her soul, and then said softly, "Suppose I were to offer evidence for one of them; would you accept all the rest?"

That wasn't the response that Margaret had expected. She thought about it for a moment, and then said honestly, "If I were on the jury, I probably would, yes."

"Glad to hear it," said Hunter. Without further preliminaries, he sprang from the witness box like a jaguar leaping at an unwary pudu; before Hutchison could move a muscle, he had pinned Margaret to him with an expert chokehold and was pressing against the side of her head with some fiendish-looking bronze implement.

Margaret, who had spent a fair portion of her college gym credit on the tae-kwon-do mat, would probably have reacted violently to being manhandled in this way, except that, as soon as Hunter's implement touched her temple, a sensation came over her that rendered her all but helpless in his arms. What exactly this sensation was was difficult to pin down; it seemed to combine the sheer, tearing agony of a man on the rack with the almost heartbreaking joy that she had felt on the beach that night before her law-school final. Whatever it was, it left her with little energy to feel anything else, be it outrage, or fear, or even curiosity about what Galedary's witness was up to.

"Don't worry, Miss Dorsey," she heard Hunter whisper, with something almost like tenderness. "I'm not going to hurt you. You're a lawyer, not a Writer."

What that had to do with anything, Margaret had no idea, but she was too far gone in her interior conflict to worry about it. Nor was she particularly concerned with the panic that had arisen in the courtroom; the screams and exclamations of the crowd seemed faint and far away, and the voice of Judge Gunnell was to her as a voice in a dream as he banged his gavel and cried out over the tumult, "Order! There will be order in this courtroom! And Mr. Galedary, if Counsel meets with any harm at the hands of the witness you introduced, let me assure you that you will never argue another case in this state so long as I draw breath!"

Galedary himself seemed genuinely startled for the first time that day, a circumstance that at any other time would have given Margaret a flash of vindictive pleasure. "Hunter!" he shouted. "In God's name, what do you think you're doing?"

"Inducing materialization," Hunter replied. "Remember how I said that everyone has a Muse? Keep your eye on the floor over there."

Margaret tried to follow this instruction, but the nameless welter of sensations within her suddenly rose to a fever pitch, and the world went black around her.

* * *

When she regained consciousness some minutes later, Hutchison was bending over her and wiping her forehead with a damp cloth. "Oh, here she comes," he called to the Judge as he saw her eyelids flutter open. "Take it easy, Counselor, you're going to be just fine."

"What happened?" Margaret murmured.

"Don't know, exactly," said Hutchison. "One minute Hunter was grabbing you by the throat and pointing that bronze thing at your head; then you collapsed and he jumped back into the witness box, and next minute that little black girl appeared on the floor next to the window."

"Little black girl?" Margaret repeated, puzzled.

Hutchison gestured with his thumb at a spot some yards to Margaret's left. Margaret raised her head and looked in the direction indicated, and her world turned upside down.

Lying on the floor of the courtroom, about halfway between the judge's bench and the defendant's chair, was a small, bone-thin girl in a tattered sarong and headscarf. She could have stepped out of any of a hundred photojournalists' stories about the latest famine in Somalia or Biafra – and, in fact, as Margaret well knew, she had stepped out of one of them. This was the girl in the _Newsweek _story that Margaret had read when she was eight years old and looking for pictures of Christian Slater to cut out and tape onto her bedroom door – the one who had haunted her dreams for the next three months – the one who had first inspired her with a passion for justice, and whom she still thought of every time she was called to defend one of the poor and helpless of the earth.

"Zia?" she whispered.

"Hello, Peggy," said the girl with a smile.

In an instant, all the vagueness and wooziness fled from Margaret's mind. She struggled to her knees, clambered over to the spot where Zia was lying (heedless of the damage it was doing to her $100 skirt), and clasped her heart's inspiration to her chest.

A light laugh sounded from the witness stand, and Margaret looked up to see Daemon Hunter staring down at her with what she suspected was an infuriatingly patronizing expression behind those glasses. "You just have to know their anatomy," he commented.

Judge Gunnell coughed. "Miss Dorsey," he said, "did you have any further questions for the witness?"

Margaret, who had almost forgotten about _Texas v. McDaniel_, had to stop and think for a moment. Further questions? She had plenty of questions for Hunter, ranging from _Why_ _do you hate artistic Muses so much?_ to _What kind of drinks do they serve at the Subreality Café?_, but the line of questioning that she had planned to use to get Linda McDaniel off the hook had been blown out from under her. She had demanded proof of Hunter's bona fides, and he had given it to her. Her task as counsel for the defense was effectively finished.

"No, Your Honor," she said. "No further questions."

Judge Gunnell nodded, and turned to the witness. "You may step down, Mr. Hunter."

As Hunter rose to his feet, Linda McDaniel rose to hers, her face that of a deer caught in a hunter's sights. "If it please the jury," she said, "I would just like to say that I had no idea you could harm a Writer by killing his Muse. I never meant to kill Waz – I actually thought he was a really nice guy, I just wanted him to lay off on the posts for a while – so I just want to apologize to his family, if I…"

"We don't need your apologies, you murdering bitch!" shouted Sheila Bermudez from the other side of the courtroom. "We need to see your damned Yankee behind in the chair!"

This, of course, was what the crowd – or at least part of it, the part made up of those people who sit in on murder trials because it's more respectable than watching _Jerry Springer_ – had been waiting for. Strange dimensions between fiction and reality, witnesses inducing crises in the defense attorney's soul, starving African children who magically appeared out of thin air – that stuff was all very well, but bereaved mothers screaming curses at the killers of their sons was the real deal. The courtroom exploded in a babel of voices, and no amount of pounding from Judge Gunnell's gavel could restore order.

In the midst of the confusion, Daemon Hunter quietly descended from the witness stand and walked out of the courtroom. As he reached the doorway, he turned and glanced significantly at David Galedary, who nodded, picked up his legal pad and pencil, and followed after him.

Margaret frowned, and turned to her Muse. "Zia, could you excuse me for a moment?" she said.

Zia smiled. "Go ahead," she said.

Margaret thanked her, rose from her place on the floor, and followed Hunter and Galedary out into the main corridor of the courthouse.

* * *

She wasn't sure what she intended to do when she caught up with them. Apologize to Hunter, maybe, for the harangue she'd given him in her cross-examination, and thank him for the opportunity he'd given her of knowing herself.

As it happened, however, she had no opportunity to do anything of the sort, for, when she arrived in the corridor, Hunter was nowhere to be seen. The only person present was Galedary, who was engaged in tearing a piece of paper out of his legal pad; as Margaret watched, he folded it carefully into a small square and placed it in his pocket as though eliminating a piece of incriminating evidence. This done, he glanced up at his erstwhile opponent and smiled cordially. "Ah, Miss Dorsey," he said. "Come to escape the melee, I suppose. Very sensible of you."

Margaret arched an eyebrow. "What happened to your friend?" she inquired.

Galedary shrugged. "Hunter had to get back to Subreality City," he said. "Apparently he and some of his friends are planning a bit of a shindig at the Villains' Bailiwick this evening. Something about the Gremlin's birthday party, although how anyone can have a birthday in a universe without time is more than I can tell you."

Margaret shook her head. "You know, I still can barely believe it," she said. "A universe where imagination meets reality, professional Muse killers, pieces of people's souls taking on material form – honestly, Galedary, how did you learn about all this?"

Galedary smiled slightly. "In the Usual Way, if you know what I mean," he said.

Margaret couldn't think of anything to reply to this, and conversation languished for some moments. At length, Galedary cocked his head and turned toward the courtroom door. "Sounds as though the fracas is dying down," he said. "We'd better get back in there and go through the closing formalities."

"Good idea," said Margaret, glancing down at her watch. "I'd almost forgotten that I'm supposed to be at the Divine Mercy Soup Kitchen by 8:00 tonight."

"Oh, do you volunteer there?" said Galedary.

Margaret nodded.

"I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised," Galedary reflected. "Well, good for you."

"How about you?" said Margaret, trying to ignore the essential weirdness of the fact that she was having a civilized conversation with David Galedary. "What are your plans for the evening?"

Galedary smiled mysteriously. "Oh, nothing special," he said. "Go home, boot up my computer, share a beer with Hank and Pinocchio – pretty much the same as every other evening."

"Hank and Pinocchio?" said Margaret with a frown. "Who are those, your dogs?"

"No," said Galedary simply.

He gave Margaret about five seconds to intuit and draw conclusions, then opened the courtroom door and extended an arm gallantly. "Shall we, Miss Dorsey?"

* * *

Rapid-Fire Disclaimer: Daemon Hunter: Willey. Subreality, Subreality Café: Kielle. "That loathsome creature with the eleven Muses": CG. Nate Grey: himself. Villains' Bailiwick: Chameleon. The Gremlin: D^Knight. Hank: Lee. Peregrine: Yasmin. Everything else: mine.


	14. Carcharodon

**Introducton to "Carcharodon":** The Subreality Casino is one of the least-frequented locations in Subreality. Indeed, apart from Obsidian Butterfly's introductory round robin, I believe this drabble is the only story ever set there. Under the circumstances, very little introduction is really necessary.

This story was posted on the SCML on 27 July, 2008, and makes reference to - well, that would be telling, now wouldn't it?

* * *

"Why did you even let him near the table, Alexis?" Katarina hissed.

"How could I stop him?" said Alexis. "Rule #1, remember? 'Never offend rich Mainstreams'?"

"And what good does his being rich do us if…" Katarina started, then sighed and fell silent.

The rest of the room, however, remained as noisy as casino main floors usually are. The slots kept whirring, the croupiers kept announcing results, the half-drunk craps players kept screaming at the dice – and, to Katarina's dismay, one voice from the blackjack table kept calling above the din:

"Six! Six tens or face cards! Ah, ah, ah!"

* * *

Rapid-Fire Disclaimer: Subreality: Kielle. Subreality Casino, Katarina, and Alexis: Obsidian Butterfly. The Count: Henson. And, since I forgot about it last time, Bunny slippers: Abyss


	15. Great Moons of Jupiter!

**Introduction to "Great Moons of Jupiter!": **Ganymede, the beautiful and hapless Prince of Ilium and Olympian cupbearer, was established early in Subreality's history as Calliope's private secretary and man-of-all-work at the Imaginarium Collegium. Despite this rather high-profile position, however, there was never, to my knowledge, a story on the SCML that centered around him, until your humble correspondent decided to play around with his astronomical associations.

This story was posted on the SCML on August 30, 2010, and makes reference to the Greek Mythology, Deep Heaven Trilogy (or Space Trilogy, as this site insists on calling it), and various science-fiction fandoms.

* * *

Calliope uttered an imprecation against all known or theoretical gods (herself presumably excepted) as she stormed into her office.

"Problem, Your Majesty?" said Ganymede, raising his eyes from his list of the expenses the Collegium would accrue during the 2010/2011 school year.

"Have you seen the list of new applicants for this year?" Calliope demanded. "Out of all the infinite hordes of actual or potential fictives in the cosmos, _six_ are interested in becoming Muses this year. _Six!_ Even in the depths of the Dark Ages, we never dipped below double digits."

Ganymede puckered his lips thoughtfully. "Well, we are in rather a high-risk location for Mist encroachment," he observed. "I suppose most would-be students are hesitant to enroll at a school that might be attacked by calibans any day now."

"I see," said Calliope icily. "You think it's reasonable, do you, that the next generation of Writers should be deprived of trained Inspiration providers because _this_ generation of Writers neglected their duty of civic upkeep?"

Ganymede blinked. "Well, no," he said. "No, I certainly don't think it's _reasonable_. I'm just saying…"

"Who asked you to _say_ anything?" Calliope snapped. "Talk, talk, talk! That's all anyone ever does in this #%! # universe! There's not a single $&!**(! person in the whole =**Â£Ã¾âˆˆ place who knows how to _do_ anything anymore!"

Ganymede didn't respond. A lifetime spent as chief assistant to various mortal and immortal monarchs had given him some insight into the moods of the earth's mighty, and he knew when to let a storm blow over. So for the next fifteen minutes, as Calliope strewed punctuation marks liberally about the office, he communed with his own private thoughts.

Certainly, the Collegium was in a sad state. Mist encroachment was only one of its problems; the bigger problem was that the literary world it was dependent on had grown appallingly moribund. Her Majesty had spoken dismissively of the Dark Ages, but the fact was that Musing for a Viking bard had been a much more rewarding career than inspiring the average modern Nobel laureate was ever likely to be. It had demanded something out of a person; it had provided real scope for the talents one had studied so hard to perfect; there had been genuine penalties for failure, and genuine rewards for success. Nowadays, a distinguished author meant someone who told pointless, amateurishly plotted stories that he failed to punctuate properly; if you really did your job as a Muse, the critics paid lip service to your Writer's output and then scrupulously ignored him at award time. It was depressing.

Decidedly, the Collegium needed revitalization. Its best hope was probably a worldwide energy crisis in Reality, with the attendant collapse of civilization and a return of literature to the popular level – but, of course, those never happened when you needed them. Nor was there much chance of the second-best alternative: a sudden influx of students who were so insulated from contemporary literary trends that they would just go ahead and inspire stories and poems without worrying about what the critics were interested in. People like that generally didn't even think about becoming Muses, unless they were urged into it by their parents or…

Ganymede stiffened. Wait a minute, now: that was an idea. Not a bad idea, either – and, if it worked, Calliope would be deeply indebted to him for a good long while…

He rose abruptly. "Pardon me, Your Majesty," he said. "I beg to be excused. There is a matter that needs my immediate attention."

Interpreting Calliope's one-word response as a grant of permission, he rose and left the office, narrowly avoiding decapitation from a flying ampersand as he did so.

* * *

A few minutes later, he was sitting in a back booth in the Collegium library, with a pile of books and magazines heaped up on the table in front of him. Most of them were tales of interplanetary romance from the early days of science fiction – an odd place to look for the redemption of contemporary literature, but there was a method in Ganymede's madness.

He took a deep breath, and focused his mental energies inward. A violent shudder ran through his body, as though its owner was being torn in two; then, the next moment, he became aware of a second body, equally his own – the body of a mighty and awful being, one that could bathe in light as if it were water. He raised his head, and his two selves beheld each other – the one a beautiful youth of flesh and blood, the other an airish resident of Deep Heaven.

It is one of the lesser-known facts of Subreal ontology that, although you can hardly go anywhere in Subreality without meeting three or four personality variants on the same fictive, still it is not correct to speak of, for instance, "three different Wolverines". There is only one Wolverine, the one created by Len Wein in 1974; one cannot (barring parallel universes and other such technicalities) identify a fictive as Wolverine without identifying him as _that_ Wolverine. Nonetheless, it remains true that Wolverine (or Harry Potter, or Clow Reed, or any other popular Mainstream one cares to name) has had many different variations introduced into his personality by subsequent writers, and that these variations, though they are now all part of him, cannot all exist in one fictive without canceling themselves out and essentially erasing his entire personality. Thus it happens that fictives have the power, when in Subreality, to enflesh fanfictional variants of themselves in separate bodies: doppelgängers, if you will, that share their originals' souls (if fictives have souls) but possess their own distinct personalities and arrays of powers.

For the most part, Mainstream fictives use this power for one of two purposes: to ingratiate themselves with the Writers of their doppelgängers, or to evade the Subreality Café's ban on Mainstreams – preferably several times in one night. (This latter habit is why so many prominent Mainstreams are so hard to reach in the mornings. If you were suffering from seventeen simultaneous hangovers, you wouldn't feel like answering the phone, either.) On occasion, however, a variant will be able to do something that the original wishes to do but cannot, and then the original simply spins off that variant, sends him or her to do whatever it is, and thanks God for Subreal ontology.

This was what Ganymede was currently doing. There was a Chronicles-of-Narnia fanficcer he knew of who had once taken a break from exploring the Lucy/Tumnus relationship to play around in the Deep Heaven Trilogy, and in the process of doing so had added Oyéresu to most of the major bodies in the Solar System besides the five identified in _That Hideous Strength_. Since Lewis himself had identified the Oyéresu with their planets' namesakes, this meant that the Oyarsa of Ganymede was a variant form of Ganymede himself – a fact that he had exploited on several occasions. So now, as he sat in the recesses of the Collegium library, he was not merely Ganymede of Ilium, the hapless prince who had lost his virginity to Calliope's father: he was the Oyarsa of Kaltorilbia, greatest of all worlds in the Lesser Field of Glund â€" and, therefore, absolute ruler over all races that originated on that world.

"Thank you, Simon Marius," he muttered, and turned his attention to the books and magazines in front of him. "Now, let's see, which of you shall we approach first?"

* * *

The natives of the Crystal City were going about the quiet routine of their daily lives when they heard a bell-like voice calling to them to gather before the Capitol. They looked up, and perceived a presence in the air above them, hardly visible save as the faintest distortion of the City's luminescence, yet somehow unmistakable. With unerring instinct, the citizens recognised that this was a being to be obeyed, and they hastened in fear and wonder to the centre of the city.

"My _hnau_," said Kaltorilbia (for the being, of course, was he), "though you do not know me, yet your world is dedicated to me in the culture from which you sprang. For you, as you doubtless know, are fictives; your universe, all that you know, has sprung from the mind of one who lives in a world that is to this one as waking is to dreams."

"We know this well, O Mighty One," said the Mayor of the City. (And, indeed, they did. The presence of a Subreal visitor generally suffices to remind Unrealizens of their fictive nature; it is rarely necessary to bring them bodily into Subreality, unless a fictive is unusually stubborn.)

"Know this, as well, then," said Kaltorilbia. "There is a third world between the worlds of dreams and waking, analogous to the state in which one dreams with one's eyes open. From this world I have come, and, having left a part of myself there, can return when I will.

"In this world is a great centre of learning, where beings from all the dream-worlds gather to learn the art of kindling dreams in a waking heart. It is my wish that you select one from among your number to study this art, so that, when I return, I may take him with me back to the hypnopompic world and enroll him as a student at this school, which is sadly lacking in students at this time."

"We shall do so, O Mighty One," said the Mayor.

"Good," said Kaltorilbia. "Now I must leave you for a time. I have many other dream-worlds to visit, and only a short time in which to do so."

_Well, _thought Ganymede, as his Deep Heavenly counterpart departed from the _Honeymoon in Space _universe. _That was easy._

* * *

The next Ganymedian race on the agenda put up somewhat more resistance. "What?" demanded Major Cardinal Zency, lashing his long, sinuous tongue angrily at his Oyarsa. "Leave the homeworld and our creeches for some betwixt-and-between dimension? Spend a lifetime as the psychic servant of one of the very creatures we just conquered? No self-respecting Ruler would consider such a thing."

"Why not?" Kaltorilbia enquired calmly. "You know that your race is doomed; in my presence, you cannot help knowing that you are part of a book, nor how it ends. And the member of your race who became a Muse would, at least, be a participant in the making of literature, rather than a mere tool of its execution."

Zency hesitated. No fictive is entirely immune from this line of argument (as Kaltorilbia/Ganymede, being one, knew perfectly well), and villainous alien conquerors are particularly vulnerable to it. "Well, yes, that is true," he admitted. "All the same, to be in service to a human…"

"You are in service to a human now," said Kaltorilbia. "And hardly exalted service; you are a token character in one of your Writer's least distinguished novels. Whereas, should you choose to study at the Collegium, you may – who knows? – become the right hand of a literary titan, indispensable to the authoring of magnificent plays, or poems, or tales: perhaps all three. I do not say this is likely – but, considering your station as it is now, what have you to lose?"

The Major Cardinal writhed in anguished indecision for perhaps a minute. Then, at last, he yielded to the force of reason. "Very well," he said. "When you return, I will accompany you to this Imaginarium Collegium. They will accept me there, I trust?"

"Certainly," said Kaltorilbia. "Most Muses, of course, are taken from the ranks of the Generics, but there is no reason why a Mainstream may not learn the craft. Many have."

"Then I will," said Zency.

"Excellent," said Kaltorilbia, and took his leave.

* * *

The Zara gazed thoughtfully at the ethereal creature before her. "You claim, mighty one," she said, "that you require a Llotta to accompany you back to this twilight world, that he might spend his life helping some human wordsmith to create fantasies?"

"That is my wish," said Kaltorilbia.

The Zara considered. Like Zency, she was by no means delighted to learn that she was a phantasm created by a resident of the third planet; like Zency, she found the suggestion of a member of her race serving a human frankly degrading. Unlike Zency, however, she had a certain inbred canniness, and she knew in her bones that it was unwise to defy this strange being of light and power that had appeared in her private chamber and announced itself to be the true Zara of her race's original homeworld. Far better to give it what it wanted, and turn that to her advantage as best she might.

"I shall give you Daluma," she said, naming the most useless of the male Llotta hunchbacks that served as her attendants. "He may have some natural aptitude for this art, as he has quite frequently introduced new thoughts into my mind." (She did not specify that these, for the most part, had been thoughts of murder.)

Whether her visitor saw through her subterfuge, she could not say. It merely said, "That will be satisfactory. I shall return in two days; bring him here at that time, so that I may take him with me to Subreality."

The Zara nodded her acquiescence, and her eldilic visitor vanished.

* * *

In similar fashion, Ganymede, through his alter ego, procured an Ossie and a Ja-vas, a Hansenian beetle-creature and a Maxwellian centaur, and numerous other kinds of Ganymedian besides, as students for the Collegium Class of 2014. After bringing them into Subreality, he found lodging for them at a small tenement not far from the school, and spent a week or so furnishing them with class schedules, student IDs, and textbooks. All this time, he didn't tell Calliope anything of his efforts, though her execrations of the local Writers' torpor grew more violent with every passing day; his plan was to spring it on her on the first day of the new term, just so he could see the Muse Queen utterly speechless for perhaps the first time in her life.

On that first day, Ganymede showed up at the tenement just before dawn, and spent an hour and a half rousing his subjects and preparing them for the great adventure ahead of them. When he was satisfied that each of them was ready, he took his leave, reminding them once again to be at Fortinari Hall by 8:00, and returned to the Collegium. His self-satisfaction increased with every step he took; by the time he reached the administration building, he was positively ebullient.

"Galileo! _(Galileo!)_" he caroled, pirouetting through the ancient marble halls with the gusto of a medieval dance-mania participant. "Galileo! _(Galileo!)_ Galileo _hmm-hmm-hmm do-do-do-do-o-o-o-o!_"

He was reinflating his lungs for the part about how he was just a poor boy and nobody loved him (which was demonstrably inaccurate on both counts) when he heard his Queen's distinctive snort echoing from behind him. "Great Hera's buttocks, Ganymede, what's gotten into you this morning?" said Calliope. "Just because you're a modern-day symbol of something doesn't mean you have to act like it, you know."

Ganymede turned, and assumed all the dignity that his royal lineage could muster. "Forgive me, Your Majesty," he said. "I may well have gotten a bit overexcited. I don't think that's unreasonable, considering that I have just solved the Collegium's student dearth."

"You have… what was that?"

Ganymede smiled broadly. "You heard," he said. "Thanks to my efforts, the number of enrolled Collegium students for this year has more than tripled. You see, there is at least one person in this universe who still knows how to do things."

Calliope gave him a long look, and stroked her chin thoughtfully. "All right, you have my attention," she said.

But before Ganymede could explain, there was a patter of footsteps, and five of the six original students for the 2010-2011 term came rushing into the corridor. "Your Majesty!" one of them, whose name was Amber, exclaimed. "The Collegium is being invaded by aliens!"

Calliope blinked. "By calibans, you mean," she said.

"No, aliens!" said Amber. "They're marching on Fortinari Hall right now! All different kinds of hideous creatures…" Her fellow students broke in with descriptions, and the report degenerated into a babel of conflicting voices yelling about giant beetles and huge pink worms with eight-foot tongues.

Calliope's voice rose above the tumult. "All right, all right," she said, and pulled a communicator out of her pocket and flipped it open. "Tristram?" she said. "Get together all the Warrior Muses you can find, and take them down to Fortinari Hall. Apparently there's a slight situation developing down there, and…"

She trailed off, and shot a look at Ganymede, who was looking down at the floor in a marked manner. "On second thought, wait a minute," she said, and flipped the communicator shut again.

"Ganymede," she enquired, her voice dripping with false sweetness, "you wouldn't happen to know anything about this, would you?"

Ganymede swallowed. "Well, yes, actually, I do," he said. "You see, those… er… individuals at Fortinari Hall… you see, they… well, in a certain sense…" He swallowed again. "Well, the fact of the matter is, those are our new Muses."

"Muses!" Amber shrieked. "That swollen-headed thing with the evil glint in his eye is a Muse?"

"Well… yes."

Amber raised her chin defiantly. "Well, if that's a Muse, I'm certainly not going to be one," she said.

"I'll second that," said one of her companions. "I don't mind having a grim and ancient Raven for a professor, but when it comes to sharing a study hall with that leering, hunchbacked monstrosity…" She shuddered. "No. Just… no."

The other three likewise disclaimed any intention of remaining at a Collegium that boasted such students, and the five of them swept magnificently from the corridor, presumably heading for the Student Services building to get their tuition refunded. Ganymede watched them go until they were fully out of sight – not because they were particularly attractive (although several of them were), but because anything was better than meeting Calliope's gaze at that moment.

At last, though, he was forced to turn his head and look into those venomous gray eyes. He smiled shakily. "Xenophobia," he remarked. "It's a terrible thing, don't you think?"

Calliope made no response, but continued to glare at him for perhaps fifteen seconds, the venom in her gaze increasing exponentially with every passing tick of the clock. Then, slowly, she turned and strode away, her steps sounding like gunshots against the marble floor.

Ganymede glanced down at his body, and was mildly relieved to find that he was still fully human. Maybe Calliope realized that, now that she had at most one traditional student remaining, she was pretty much stuck with the class he had assembled, and was holding off her vengeance on him until she no longer needed him to keep them in line.

He took a deep breath. _Well, boys,_ he thought, _you'd just better make a good impression. Otherwise, your Oyarsa's up a crick._

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Subreality is, of course, the discovery of Kielle, while the Collegium was Farli's. Calliope and Ganymede come from Greek mythology, while their status as Subreality regulars comes from Yasmin M., who also gave us Tristram.

The Oyéresu come, as I said, from C. S. Lewis's Deep Heaven Trilogy. The fanficcer who expanded said trilogy does not, to my knowledge, exist; I just needed such a story for the purposes of the plot, and thought, what the hey, I haven't read everything on the Internet. (If all else fails, I can always write it myself.)

The various stories of Ganymedian aliens referred to, however, are real, and are the work of (in order of their first mention in this story) George Griffith, Philip K. Dick, Harl Vincent, Isaac Asimov, Frank Brueckel, L. Taylor Hansen, and Joslyn Maxwell. Since most of these people are dead, I doubt they'll mind anyone using their aliens as Muses.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" was written by Freddie Mercury (or, as we Deep Heaven fans call him, Freddie Viritrilbia) and recorded by Queen and, more recently, Prince Poppycock.


End file.
